He is best known for directing the crime thrillers Two Days in the Smoke and Welcome to Curiosity, producing the award-winning Election Night and Give Them Wings and for his dystopian alternative history novel Freiheit.

Shot on 16mm film with a minuscule £6,000 ($7,500) budget, it was described as a cross between Pulp Fiction and Shallow Grave, taking a swipe at a decadent Nineties Britain.

[1] After making his directorial debut in 1999 with the pilot episode for docudrama series How To Get Away With Murder, Pickering's film career took a back seat as he got heavily involved in UK politics.

Made for £25,000 ($30,000) in conjunction with graduates of the London Film School, it featured Welsh rugby legend Ray Gravell in his final screen role.

One of the film's stars, Jeff Leach, told reporters that many scenes featuring his character Dean ended up on the cutting room floor.

The film was shot on location in Cornwall, Kent and London between April and October 2014 and starred Amrita Acharia, Richard Blackwood and Stephen Marcus.

Three – Pickering, John and Cainen's ex-girlfriend Emma Davey – pleaded guilty to mortgage fraud at Swansea Crown Court on 13 June 2014.

After its premiere in London's Leicester Square,[13] Pickering's second feature Welcome to Curiosity was released in UK and North American cinemas, on DVD and VOD in June 2018.

Pickering's debut novel Freiheit – a dystopian alternative history thriller based in a post-war Britain where Adolf Hitler had never existed – was published on 2 September 2019, to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War II.