7BR

Crime & Regulatory; Inquests and Inquiries; Civil & Family;

Vanessa Marshall KC is a multi-disciplinary practitioner with a unique practice covering both criminal and civil jurisdictions. Vanessa offers the skills and experience gained as a busy criminal advocate combined with the discipline and attention to detail associated with civil paperwork. She has a particular expertise in complicated medical issues.

Vanessa is highly sought after not only in the Crown Court but increasingly in both the family and civil court, for her expertise litigating issues such as serious physical and sexual violence.

Crime & Regulatory

Her practice in crime is split between prosecuting and defending and she is well known as a specialist in rape matters and other difficult, complex sexual offences, including historic allegations and those involving child witnesses. Vanessa possesses fine attention to detail and a strong work ethic, which combined with her relentless tenacity (particularly involving issues of disclosure) and effectiveness as a jury advocate, make her the obvious choice whether prosecuting or defending. It is a testament to this that within a week of taking Silk, she was instructed in the only two murders in the East Midlands by both the defence and prosecuting involving stabbing by young defendants. In short, she always goes the extra mile and leaves no stone unturned, consistently achieving acquittals when defending ‘hopeless’ cases and regularly secures convictions in ‘difficult’ prosecution cases.

Her background as a Registered General Nurse at a London teaching hospital means that she is a first-choice candidate for criminal cases concerning complex medical issues, causation and where there is a psychiatric disorder, including neurodiverse conditions on issues of insanity, loss of control and diminished responsibility. Over the last few years, she has become known for her skill in dealing with abusive head trauma cases (‘baby shaking’) and is often brought in early by the CPS to provide advice. She is currently instructed to prosecute 2 such cases (serious violence and murder respectively) by CPS Wessex, Complex Case work unit.

Having been in Silk for 8 years, she is regularly instructed nationally, in the most serious of criminal offences, including single and multi-handed murder, manslaughter, attempted murder, arson, shootings, robbery & kidnapping, serious sexual violence, modern slavery & high value drugs offences. She continues to prosecute serious sexual offences (RASSO), when a Silk is warranted and has a busy private practice, defending serious sexual and violent offences, including those committed by GPs, a practice that she regularly undertook as a junior.

As a junior, she had extensive experience being led in multi-handed murder inquiries for both prosecution and defence, which has given her a wealth of experience when she transitioned to Silk. One of the largest cases she did as a junior was acting for the prosecution on the Hilda Murrell investigation, where her pre-trial work included heading up a police team reviewing 100,000 documents for the purposes of disclosure and PII hearings, as well as covert work involving the security services and civilian informants.

Family/Abuse Claims

Vanessa has extensive experience in inquests and clinical negligence, predominantly acting for claimants, as well as personal injury/abuse claims, predominantly acting for defendants. The balance of her practice means that she has accrued a vast amount of knowledge and experience representing clients both at trial and in mediations, concerning complicated medical issues. Importantly, she has been able to deploy those skills at the criminal bar, especially when cross examining expert witnesses when dealing with, amongst other issues, abusive head trauma (‘baby shaking’) cases.

This expertise is now sought after in other disciplines, and she is increasingly being instructed in the family court, in complex fact-finding hearings, defending individuals alleged to have seriously injured their children or grandchildren. Another example of her readily transferable skills is that a client whom she is defending in al allegation of serious violence in the criminal court, has now asked her to represent him in a related matter in the family court.

Vanessa is currently instructed to defend a well-known social media influencer against a historic claim for damages for trespass to the person (rape), assault and controlling & coercive behaviour, after the CPS declined to prosecute for this alleged behaviour in the Crown court. The trial is listed for a 5-week trial in the Kings Bench Division before a High Court Judge. With her wealth of expertise in defending these claims in the Crown court, Vanessa was seen as the perfect fit to litigate these issues.

Inquests and Inquiries

Vanessa’s practice also extends into the regulatory/disciplinary arena. She has appeared in the Care Standards Tribunal, where she successfully defended a social worker who was challenging the decision to include him on a list of those deemed unsuitable to work with children. Given her clinical negligence experience and the work she does for the medical defence organisations, defending doctors in the Crown Court, she is well placed to represent professionals in disciplinary proceedings and has appeared before the General Dental Council on behalf of a dentist facing allegations of gross misconduct. A good example of her dual practice is that she then represented the same dentist in a civil fraud action bought by the NHSLA in the QBD. She also has experience in prison law, having been instructed in both adjudication and parole board hearings in prisons around the country.

In 2009-10, she was Counsel to the Airedale Inquiry, conducted by Kate Thirlwall QC (now Lady Justice) and instructed by Weightmans Solicitors, which included calling and cross-examining hospital managers, doctors and nurses into the management and practices of Night Nurse Practitioners at Airedale NHS Trust. The terms of reference reviewed nurse prescribing and IV administration of opiates, following a stayed murder prosecution against a senior NNP (she took her own life before the trial) who was believe to have being deliberately administering opiates to elderly patients without authority. It was through her meticulous analysis of the voluminous amount of documentation that Vanessa discovered a file that had been missed by the prosecution team, (showing that she had been trained and authorised to administer the opiates), which wholly exculpated the NNP from any wrongdoing.

Called 1994, Gray’s Inn. Member of 7 Bedford Row from pupillage to the present day.

• Criminal Bar Association
• PNBA

St Maurs Convent/St George’s College, Weybridge, Surrey; St Thomas’ Hospital, London (1989 RGN); University College London (1993 LLB Hons 2:1).