Jon Whitfield KC > Doughty Street Chambers > London, England > Barrister Profile

Jon Whitfield KC

Work Department

Position

Jon specialises in defending cases of homicide, terrorism, regulatory & financial crime (fraud & corruption) and cases involving mental health, medical or forensic issues.

Jon advises in medical disciplinary proceedings and sits as a legal assessor on GMC cases, he also sits as a Judge on Mental Health Tribunals. Jon has worked with consistent success in some of the most high profile cases of recent times. He is very much a ”team-player”, willing to do whatever is necessary to prepare and present a case and lead a team throughout this process.  He responds well to the pressures of work putting in long hours to assimilate the large amounts of information needed to successfully defend cases of this gravity. His style in court is robust and combative which compliments his intellectual ability to reduce complex evidence to an essential core for the jury. Twenty five years of successful work as a junior were rewarded by his taking Silk in 2010.

For many years Jon has been a competitive yachtsman at local and national level. The physical and mental requirements of competitive team-sailing events are commitment, the ability to make good decisions quickly (& justify them), move with events and make good tactical decisions.  Exactly the same qualities as are required in dealing with serious and complex crime.

Jon has considerable business experience creating pension, financial, managerial and welfare systems for two large London chambers and running much of these structures. This gives him first-hand knowledge of the frameworks within which companies must operate.

Career

Called 1985, Middle Temple; QC 2010. Bolt Court Chambers 1987; Hardwicke Building 1994; tribunal judge, First-tier Tribunal (MHRT) 2002; 15 New Bridge Street 2004; assessor for the General Medical Council 2007. Current directorships: Riverside (SIPP) Ltd (pension trustee); Phire Ltd (service company); financial director Chambers and associated pension funds. Recent publications of note: handbook on disciplinary proceedings (proposed publication 2012); analysis of blood-spatter patterns. 2011; SEC Roadshow on bar De-Regulation. 2010; Firearms. 2007; ‘Justice on the cheap is no justice at all’ (fast tracking cases, cutting corners, removing safeguards and denying proper representation leads to no justice at all). 2005.

Memberships

Criminal Bar Association

Association of Regulatory and Disciplinary Lawyers

South Eastern Circuit

Association of Military Court Advocates

Kintampo Trustee (Mental Health in Ghana)

Riverside Trustee & Pension Fund Manager

Education

St Mary’s College, Southampton; London Metropolitan (1984, BA Hons, law 2:1).

Leisure

Sailing, walking, landscape photography, playing the flute, table and banjo.