Garden Court Chambers has helped shape the foundations of modern criminal appellate law by pursuing criminal appeals to the highest courts.
Our criminal appeals barristers were involved in the formulation of the now well-known Pendleton test by the House of Lords, the leading case on fresh evidence.
Over the last 40 years, we have played a key role in reversing many of the seminal miscarriages of justice, including: Derek Bentley, the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, Judith Ward, Carl Bridgewater, the M25 Three and Sam Hallam.
The Garden Court Chambers Crime Team has been shortlisted as ‘Crime Set of the Year’ at the Legal 500 Bar Awards 2023.
Areas of Expertise
- Miscarriage of justice cases including statutory compensation claims
- Points of law of public importance
- Advancing protections for victims of trafficking convicted of criminal offences
- Fresh evidence appeals
- Complex sentencing cases
- Representing juvenile defendants
- Shaken baby syndrome
- Non-disclosure and participating informants (PIs)
- Criminal Cases Review Commission applications and referrals to the Court of Appeal
- Death penalty cases in the Privy Council
We continue to work at the cutting-edge of appellate law. Two of our criminal appeals barristers were instructed in the momentous Supreme Court decision on joint enterprise (R v Jogee; Ruddock v The Queen), a judgment with far-reaching ramifications for past convictions for the most serious crimes.
We have two barristers instructed in the successful appeal to quash the conviction of Sally Challen for murdering her husband. The appeal attracted international interest across academia and the media because it was the first appeal of its kind to test the viability of coercive control as a fact relevant to provocation.
We are recognised as leading barristers in the UK for criminal law. In 2015 we won the Legal 500 Crime Set of the Year Award and our crime team has been shortlisted for the same award four times.
