Ramya Nagesh > 4-5 Gray's Inn Square > London, England > Barrister Profile

Ramya has a particular interest in cases involving the interests of those at their most vulnerable. As a result, during her time at the Bar, Ramya has built a strong practice in inquests, inquiry and professional discipline work, both as sole counsel and as junior counsel. Cases in which she has been instructed include:

• acting as second junior counsel representing the family of Saskia Jones at the Fishmongers Hall Inquest;
• Senior Counsel (Second Junior) counsel to the Undercover Policing Inquiry;
• part of a team representing a Core Participant to the Grenfell Inquiry;
• part of a team representing a Core Participant to the Post Office Inquiry;
• part of a team representing an Interested Person in the Hillsborough Inquest;
• representing a mental health nurse in a case involving a death caused by a mentally unwell patient;
• representing a police officer in a case involving a death during police custody.

For nine years of her career, Ramya maintained a busy and successful practice in criminal law alongside her other practice areas. She is a Grade 3 CPS prosecutor. She has represented the prosecution and defence in all manner of criminal cases. Her experience has led her to:

• working with the Serious Fraud Office,
• working for the defence in cases including the SFO investigation into Barclays’ Bank; and
• acting as sole and junior counsel in a number of serious criminal cases, including serious sexual offences, serious financial cases and murder;
• successfully arguing before Taunton Crown Court that the PsychoActive Substances Act does not apply to nitrous oxide. This case led to national headlines, re-consideration of the legislation and several defendants previously convicted for the same offence taking their case to the Court of Appeal.

Ramya therefore has particular expertise in serious criminal casework.

Ramya also sits as a Trustee of Justice Is Now, which is a charity working to improve the treatment of serious sexual offences in the education and legal systems. She is a member of the Bar Standards Board Taskforce on Religious Discrimination. She has a particular interest in issues involving all forms of discrimination: she currently sits on the West Midlands Hate Crime Panel, and has done so for the past seven years. She has written articles about hate crime and published a book on the topic of hate crime in 2020. She has also written books about Covid-19 and the Criminal Law and Insanity and Non-Insane Automatism. In terms of her non-work life, Ramya has always enjoyed (trying) to learn languages.