Eleanor Mawrey and Francesca Kolar secure convictions in £1.5m HMRC Gift Aid Fraud arising from false claims submitted on behalf of 10 evangelical churches.

06/12/2024

Following the 10 week trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court, Kwabena Duodu was sentenced to 10 years for his role as the accountant submitting the false claims. Moses Asare, head pastor of Praise Harvest Community Church received 7 years imprisonment for submitting the claims in relation to that church and 4 others. John Quansah, head pastor of Heaven Light Ministry International, was found guilty of furnishing false information and sentenced to 15 months suspended for 2 years.

News Article: https://www.mynewsdesk.com/uk/hm-revenue-customs-hmrc/pressreleases/son-of-a-preacher-scam-crooked-churchmen-jailed-for-charity-fraud-3357950?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=Alert&utm_content=pressrelease

Featured Counsel

Eleanor Mawrey KC

Call 2001 | Silk 2026

Francesca Kolar

Call 2018

Latest News & Events

View all

We are delighted to welcome Nick Beechey and Nasreen Shah to Deka Chambers

They join us from Great James Street Chambers. Nick is an experienced leading junior, noted for his particular ability to cut through complex issues of fact and law in order to get to the heart of the case. Nick’s practice is in defending clients…

News
13/07/2026

The Dekagram: 13th July 2026

This week Anirudh Mandagere has written a longer briefing on the use by lawyers of artificial intelligence and how to avoid being accused of negligence (it’s not as straightforward as you may think); the link to his briefing is here. Meanwhile Sarah Prager KC draws…

News
13/07/2026

You could be liable for not using AI. Read this article to find out why

The UK Jurisdiction Taskforce have produced a Legal Statement on Liability for AI Harms. Given that very few cases have reached the courts, the Legal Statement provides much-needed guidance to legal advisors and representatives. In this article Anirudh Mandagere sets out the key aspects of…

News
13/07/2026

Subscribe to our mailing list

Deka Chambers: 5 Norwich Street, London EC4A 1DR

Cookie	Duration	Description
ARRAffinity	session	ARRAffinity cookie is set by Azure app service, and allows the service to choose the right instance established by a user to deliver subsequent requests made by that user.
ARRAffinitySameSite	session	This cookie is set by Windows Azure cloud, and is used for load balancing to make sure the visitor page requests are routed to the same server in any browsing session.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-advertisement	1 year	Set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin, this cookie records the user consent for the cookies in the "Advertisement" category.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-analytics	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Analytics".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-functional	11 months	The cookie is set by GDPR cookie consent to record the user consent for the cookies in the category "Functional".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-necessary	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookies is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Necessary".
cookielawinfo-checkbox-others	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Other.
cookielawinfo-checkbox-performance	11 months	This cookie is set by GDPR Cookie Consent plugin. The cookie is used to store the user consent for the cookies in the category "Performance".
CookieLawInfoConsent	1 year	CookieYes sets this cookie to record the default button state of the corresponding category and the status of CCPA. It works only in coordination with the primary cookie.
rc::a	never	This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
rc::c	session	This cookie is set by the Google recaptcha service to identify bots to protect the website against malicious spam attacks.
sxa_site	session	This cookie is used to identify the webiste visitor's session state across page requests on server.
viewed_cookie_policy	11 months	The cookie is set by the GDPR Cookie Consent plugin and is used to store whether or not user has consented to the use of cookies. It does not store any personal data.

Cookie	Duration	Description
yt-player-headers-readable	never	The yt-player-headers-readable cookie is used by YouTube to store user preferences related to video playback and interface, enhancing the user's viewing experience.
yt-remote-cast-available	session	The yt-remote-cast-available cookie is used to store the user's preferences regarding whether casting is available on their YouTube video player.
yt-remote-cast-installed	session	The yt-remote-cast-installed cookie is used to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.
yt-remote-connected-devices	never	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's video preferences using embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-device-id	never	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's video preferences using embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-fast-check-period	session	The yt-remote-fast-check-period cookie is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences for embedded YouTube videos.
yt-remote-session-app	session	The yt-remote-session-app cookie is used by YouTube to store user preferences and information about the interface of the embedded YouTube video player.
yt-remote-session-name	session	The yt-remote-session-name cookie is used by YouTube to store the user's video player preferences using embedded YouTube video.
ytidb::LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEY	never	The cookie ytidb::LAST_RESULT_ENTRY_KEY is used by YouTube to store the last search result entry that was clicked by the user. This information is used to improve the user experience by providing more relevant search results in the future.

Cookie	Duration	Description
_ga	1 year 1 month 4 days	Google Analytics sets this cookie to calculate visitor, session and campaign data and track site usage for the site's analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognise unique visitors.
_ga_*	1 year 1 month 4 days	Google Analytics sets this cookie to store and count page views.
_gat_gtag_UA_*	1 minute	Google Analytics sets this cookie to store a unique user ID.
_gid	1 day	Google Analytics sets this cookie to store information on how visitors use a website while also creating an analytics report of the website's performance. Some of the collected data includes the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.

Cookie	Duration	Description
PREF	8 months	PREF cookie is set by Youtube to store user preferences like language, format of search results and other customizations for YouTube Videos embedded in different sites.
VISITOR_INFO1_LIVE	6 months	YouTube sets this cookie to measure bandwidth, determining whether the user gets the new or old player interface.
VISITOR_PRIVACY_METADATA	6 months	YouTube sets this cookie to store the user's cookie consent state for the current domain.
YSC	session	Youtube sets this cookie to track the views of embedded videos on Youtube pages.