Education
King's School, Canterbury
Trinity College, Cambridge
Areas of Practice
All aspects of crime, maintaining a
balance between prosecuting and defending.
Relevant Experience
The most serious allegations of violent and sexual assault,
including murder, rape, and the abuse of children. He has been sought
after in cases involving particularly vulnerable witnesses and
defendants.
Cases that have been
deemed newsworthy have run from the prosecution of the then Leeds United
footballers Jonathan Woodgate and Lee Bowyer in 2001 to the recent
defence of a so called "animal rights activist" at the Central Criminal
Court in 2006-7. His work in the case of R-v-Bates was
highlighted in the Panorama programme dealing with the law and practice
pertaining to disclosure in criminal cases. As a junior barrister, he
represented Billy Dunlop at the trials which resulted in his acquittal
of the murder of Julie Hogg in 1989; when he later confessed to the
homicide, that acquittal was quashed and he was finally convicted of her
murder in November 2006, the first to be indicted pursuant to the
provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 which abolished the common
law rule against "double jeopardy".
Recent Cases
2006-7 cases have included:
R -v- Patchett; R -v- Moran; R -v- Fletcher; R -v- Walton; R -v-
Maguire; and R -v- Ainsworth; all homicides in the context of
an intimate relationship.
R -v- Stephenson: who was alleged to have assisted in the
suicide of his wife.
R -v- Clarkson: aged 16 at the time of the murder of a 15
year old, he had turned 17 by the time he stood trial alongside other
teenagers.
R -v- Raw: the murder of an infant of 13 months.
R -v- Taylor, nee Cunnane: "animal rights" activist who was
indicted under sections 145 and 146 of the Serious Organised Crime and
Police Act 2005.
Operation Clyde: concerning historical abuse, both sexual and
violent, of children in residential care.
R -v- Davey:
indicted in the rape of a young woman with Down's Syndrome.
2000-2005 cases
included:
R -v- Anthony Land: indicted on serious sexual assaults,
including rape, of successive female partners.
R -v- Boyd: teenager-on-teenager homicide.
R -v- Gallant and Gilligan: the murder of Barrie Jackson,
involving issues of anonymity for prosecution witnesses.
A number of prosecutions arising out of the murder on Teesside of
Kalvant Singh: several of the protagonists fled the jurisdiction, were
extradited and tried at various times. One of the connected trials saw a
defendant convicted sentenced to a total term of 10 years imprisonment.
R -v- Hakeem: conspiracy to kidnap.
Reported Cases
R v H [1998] Crim. App.(S) 229: junior counsel in defence of a
battered woman who killed her husband.
R v Ghafoor (2002)
Crim.L.R. 739: approach to sentencing in the light of Article 7, ECHR.
Sits as a Recorder.
Supplementary
Information
Speaks French
Professional Membership
Criminal Bar Association, on the committee of which he served 2001-2004
representing the North Eastern Circuit.
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