Murder & Manslaughter

Members of our chambers are frequently instructed to prosecute and defend allegations of murder and manslaughter.  We strive to ensure continuity of counsel from the first hearing in the Magistrates’ Court, to the “48-hour remand hearing” in the Crown Court and all the way through to trial.

Our barristers have extensive experience prosecuting and defending across the wide range of cases that fall within this demanding and sensitive field of work, offering expert advice and guidance from the early investigative stages through to trial.

As well as being routinely instructed to prosecute single defendant and multi-handed murders and those involving complex issues arising from partial defences to murder such as diminished responsibility, we have been instructed in some of the most serious cases in the country including the prosecution of Ian Stewart for the murder of the author Helen Bailey whose body was found in a cess pit and, in a second prosecution, for the murder of his wife Diane Stewart who was originally believed to have died from natural causes, the torture and murder of Michael Gilbert whose headless body was found in a lake after he had been used as a slave by the Watt family and other prosecutions of multi-defendant prosecutions such as the murder of Christopher Lemonius where a gang carried out a brutal killing using a machete.

Our defence work includes the defence of conspiracies to murder in the context of organised crime, defence of children and young people in multi-defendant allegations involving difficult issues of joint enterprise, murder committed in the context of domestic violence and cases of manslaughter, including where there has been a road traffic accident.