Richard was born in North Yorkshire and spent most of his early life on Royal Air Force bases in Yorkshire and Lincolnshire. He studied law at the University of Manchester, and spent the following ten years as a litigator. 

Between 2015 and 2018, Richard self-published "The Art of War Trilogy", a sequence of epic space opera novels, as well as a prequel ("Hadan's Reach") and two spinoff mil-sci-fi novellas ("VIPER One", and "VIPER One: Countervalue", the latter co-authored with George Lockett).

Richard's debut fantasy "Empire of the Wolf" trilogy recently sold to Orbit Books, with the first instalment coming out in February 2022.

Richard currently lives and writes in Sydney, Australia.