The Legal 500

Work Department

AAP, public law and civil liberties.

Position

Partner and head of the actions against the police department, Sarah’s caseload encompasses public and private law challenges to the police and and/or other statutory bodies. She also represents the families of those who died in police and prison custody during the respective investigations by the police or prison and probation ombudsman and at the inquest. Sarah recently successfully concluded a number of complex actions against the police and the prison service including a claim for compensation for a witness to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes by Metropolitan police officers at Stockwell tube station. She is currently working on a number of multifaceted complaints and actions against the police involving serious racially aggravated assaults, wrongful arrest, misfeasance in public office and breaches of the Human Rights Act. Sarah represented Mrs Woods in R (Lewis & ors) v HM Coroner for the Mid and North Division of the County of Shropshire & others [2009] EWHC 661 (Admin), a test case concerning the remit of post-Middleton inquest verdicts. She represents a young man whose complaint, with others, gave rise to the prosecution of six Metropolitan police officers for racially aggravated assault and public order offences. Discrimination is a particular focus of her work. She represents individuals with discrimination claims on the grounds of their race, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and gender identity and is working on a public law challenge to the recent changes to Code A of PACE which, inter alia, undermine the means of determining whether stop powers are being used disproportionately against ethnic minorities. She is instructed in matters arising out of the recent protests about the cuts and tuition fees as the result of the utilisation by the police of a number of tactics, including the use of kettling, which infringe the right to protest, privacy and freedom of expression, assembly and movement. One of those is Alfie Meadows who suffered life-threatening injuries following an assault by the police at the protest about tuition fees on 9 December 2010. Sarah is taking action on behalf of a number of clients in relation to breaches of international and domestic law arising out of the situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. Sarah is listed in the ‘Chambers Directory 2010’.

Career

Qualified 2002; Madden & Finucane Solicitors 1998-2004; Bhatt Murphy 2004-07; Christian Khan 2007 to date; partner Christian Khan 2009.

Member

Police Action Lawyers Group; Inquest Lawyers Group; Trustee Lawyers for Palestinian Rights.

Education

Queen’s University, Belfast (1998 LLB 2(1)); Institute of Professional Legal Studies, Belfast (2002); Queen’s University, Belfast (2003 MA Human Rights Law).

Practice Areas

Administrative and public law; Civil liberties and human rights; Private client