Peter Testar

His Honour Judge Peter Testar is a British judge who presided over and was a sentencing judge in high-profile cases involving fraud, insider dealing and other serious offences.

Judicial career

His Honour Judge Testar was called to the bar at the Middle Temple in 1974, where he was made a bencher in 2014. He was a Recorder of the Crown Court until 2004, when he was appointed a circuit judge. In 2006 he became the Resident Judge on the South Eastern Circuit based at Southwark Crown Court. As a circuit judge he has heard and led many high-profile criminal cases.

Cases of notice

• In 2008 His Honour Judge Tester presided over a case of Lindani Mangena, a fraudster who persuaded churchgoers and other religious people to hand over millions of pounds to him.
• In 2011 His Honour Judge Tester presided over a case of Edward Davenport, a convicted fraudster who had “caused harm to many people” and ordered him to pay a £12 million confiscation order and £1.9 million in compensation to victims. Another £400,000 of the original confiscation order is still outstanding. Judge Testar has acknowledged Davenport's skill in deception, but sentenced him to seven years and eight months.
• In 2014 His Honour Judge Tester was the presiding judge in the trial of Christopher Weatherhead and Holly Road who carried out Denial of Service attacks on Visa Inc., Mastercard and Paypal. In his closing speech Judge Peter Tester emphasised that hacking is intolerable:

• In 2016 His Honour Judge Tester presided over a case of a gang of fraudsters, who "frittered money away on ephemeral junk" at Harrods and was present when £48,000 was spent at in one go at the department store, adding the crook "threw himself fully into the lavish lifestyle" by booking expensive hotels, cars and nightclubs. 25-year-old Muslim Feezan Choudhary used Scottish, Welsh or posh English accents to pose as an official from a bank’s fraud department to persuade employees to give him vital security details over the phone.

Most of his victims were believed to be small companies, with one solicitor’s firm in Liverpool losing more than half a million while a company in Gloucestershire was drained of more than £2m in just hours. Choudhary regularly stayed in the five-star Mayfair Hotel and even hired a suite there to carry out his fraud in the lap of luxury. Judge Testar said the scam was allowing cash to flow like "coins from a fruit machine". Sentencing him, he said: The fraudulent scheme involved calling businesses and telling staff they were speaking to fraud investigators persuading them to provide crucial bank account details. Giving Choudhary an 11 years sentence, judge Testar said: "Anyone who had heard the calls would have been struck and affected by them. There was a great deal of sophistication in the fraud. The people behind the fraud would have need to have an understanding of bank systems. The people involved seem to be able to take control of telephone lines of business so as to shut them out of the banks."

• In 2017 His Honour Judge Tester presided over a case of Simon Kenny and his assistant Emma Coates who were charged with stealing money from their firm's client account.

See also

• Criminal justice
• Judiciary of England and Wales