Duncan Lewis Solicitors

Sunjay Versani is a Director of Crime and Prison Law at Duncan Lewis Solicitors. He is responsible for these practice groups, as well as Motoring and Regulatory Law, at the firm’s City of London and Harrow offices. Sunjay is a highly-regarded criminal defence specialist and has been part of Duncan Lewis since 2009. He manages a formidable team of lawyers whose high calibre work is perennially recognised with industry quality hallmarks and by the independent legal directories.

Sunjay was Called to the Bar in 2007 and Admitted to the Roll in 2008. As such, he is counted amongst the small cadre of English lawyers able to both appear before and conduct litigation in all courts and tribunals throughout the jurisdiction. Beyond which he is also licensed to practice in the British Indian Ocean Territory. This vertical integration of skills has allowed him to act in many thousands of contested cases across the gamut of English and international criminal law. Sunjay is well-versed in the cut-and-thrust of adversarial proceedings and in the conduct of work of public importance. He has stood before the highest courts in the land and has been instructed in sensitive, complex and voluminous litigation on behalf of a multitude of individuals and entities, across borders and languages.

During his career, Sunjay acted in the well-known Waya litigation, which led to a landmark Supreme Court judgement casting a much-needed sea-change in proceeds of crime jurisprudence. As sole instructed counsel, he defended a multi-million-pound insider fraud upon the NatWest bank at the Old Bailey and successfully managed to reduce a lengthy sentence in one of the very first cases to be televised live in the 100-year history of the Court of Appeal. Sunjay secured a favourable outcome in a case involving the stalking of musician Rita Ora, and negotiated a discontinuance for a member of Elton John’s staff falsely accused of misuse of computers. He also led the defence of a high-profile client wrongly implicated in the 'Putney Bridge Pusher' investigation – an internationally-publicised incident of a jogger pushing a female pedestrian into the path of an oncoming London bus.

Sunjay has an enviable track record in defending cases involving alleged sexual wrongdoing, white-collar and social security fraud, as well as sundry violence, dishonesty, narcotics, and road traffic prosecutions.

Sunjay also undertakes specialist extradition work (routinely dealing with international requests under both parts of the Act). He advises those with discrete legal needs which often arise in parallel to criminal proceedings. He has assisted professional clients in navigating workplace investigations and disciplinary/regulatory issues with their overseeing bodies.

Appointed as Director of Crime - Duncan Lewis Solicitors (2023 - Present) Consultant Criminal Solicitor - Duncan Lewis Solicitors (2009 - 2023)

Member of the Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn Civil & Criminal Proceedings Higher Rights of Audience Criminal Litigation: Law Society Accreditation The SRA Management Course London Criminal Courts Solicitors’ Association Listed in Good Lawyer Guide Law Society Young and Vulnerable Witnesses Advocacy Accreditation Course