As the prosecution and defence wound up their opening statements for the jury, the former gardener, and lifelong friend of tax barrister Robert Venables KC each took to the stand.

Venables, 78, a leading barrister at Old Square Tax Chambers, is alleged to have falsified his earnings declarations between 2014 and 2021.

Barrister for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), Julian Christopher KC, claimed in his opening argument that Venables ‘paid almost £2m less tax than he should have done’ and had received his income as a tax barrister through an ‘elaborate system’.

Appearing first was Venables’s former gardener Dean Wise.

Wise stated he had spent time as Venables’s gardener beginning in April 2011 and ending in July 2016.