The Legal 500

Position

Criminal defence, civil liberties, actions against police and inquests.

Career

Called 1997; Inner Temple. Nick is instructed as leading counsel specialising in complex and serious crime. He recently acted as lead counsel for the main defendant in one of Britain's biggest ever drugs importation trials. Nick represented Joe Glenton, the soldier who was charged with desertion when he refused to do a second tour of duty in Afghanistan. In August 2009 Nick went to Baghdad, Iraq, for a week in an attempt to get his client Danny Fitzsimons brought back to the UK. Fitzsimons, a British security worker, was facing the death penalty for the murder oftwo co-security workers. Whilst sitting in his hotel lobby it was hit by bomb blasts that killed over 100 people across the city. He was leading counsel in R v Saleem and others, in which the defendants were charged with incitement to commit terrorism (murder) abroad and incitement to raise funds for terrorism. He acted in R v S(F) and A(S) [2009] 1 Cr. App. R. 18, dealing with the privilege against selfincrimination in the context of sections 49 and 53 Regulation ofinvestigatory Powers Act 2000. The trial involves a conspiracy to breach a terrorist control order and a refusal to hand over an encrypted computer file. In R v Tirnaveanu, (2007] 2 Cr. App. R. 23, at Canterbury Crown Court, Nick was lead counsel in a trial and re-trial that lasted over five months, dealing with allegations of fraud, forgery, deception and immigration offences. In the course of the proceedings Nick successfully submitted that the trial judge should withdraw from the case on the basis of apparent bias against his client.

Member

Criminal Bar Association; Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers.

Education

MA LLB (Cantab).

Practice Areas

Crime - general