Elyas Patel > New Park Court Chambers > Leeds, England > Barrister Profile

Elyas Patel

+44 (0)113 243 3277 clerks@newparkcourt.co.uk

Work Department

Crime

Position

Elyas Patel now practises exclusively in criminal law, after a broad common law practice (including Personal Injury, Family, Immigration and Employment).

From the foundation of a very well-established and mixed prosecution and defence criminal practice, Elyas now devotes himself exclusively to criminal defence work.

Elyas has particular interest and experience of dealing with cases bearing an Islamic perspective. Elyas is multilingual and speaks both Urdu and Gujarati.

Elyas has a true understanding of today’s multicultural society and is often praised for the empathy and understanding he shows to his clients.

Elyas is typically instructed in the most serious criminal cases; and has experience of dealing with the full spectrum of criminal offences including homicide, firearms offences, terrorism offences, operational conspiracies, sexual offences, serious fraud, drugs and violence offences and multi-handed public order offending.

Elyas was the Sweet & Maxwell Law Prize winner and also the winner of the Gooderson Memorial Award (St Catherine’s College, University of Cambridge).

Elyas was born in West Yorkshire and continues to live there.

Impending Cases

• R v HY & 4 Others (Bradford Crown Court, 2020). It is the prosecution’s case that HY was one of five defendants who conspired (in a campaign or ‘terror’ against vulnerable retail outlets and workers!) together and with others unknown to rob or attempt to rob convenience stores and small supermarkets between the 17th of February and the 15th of May 2019. In the course of this offending alleged offences were committed by individuals, the prosecution say that there was a pattern of these robberies namely: there would be a group robbery; identities of those involved would be concealed with balaclavas and gloves; weapons such as knives, axes, and meat cleavers would be used; the cash tills including cash and stamps, cigarettes within convenience stores would be targeted. On occasion as in the last offences an imitation firearm, namely a BB gun which had the appearance of looking like a revolver, was used.
• R v FG & 7 Others (Leeds Crown Court, 2021). FG and 9 other Defendants are charged with conspiracy to murder between 1st October 2019 and 8th November 2019. On the 4th November 2019 2 men were shot whilst sitting in a stationary car in a retail carpark in Liversidge, West Yorkshire. Their attackers were in a dark coloured VW Golf (not identified or recovered) which was seen on CCTV to have tailed their vehicle in the minutes leading up to the shooting. Neither man was killed but each required hospital treatment. Under the victim’s car was a GPS tracker of the type that can be remotely accessed. The Crown’s case is that UD arranged for the tracker to be placed there in the early hours of 29 October 2019 by his associates KM, AH and MHH with the assistance of AzH. Although UD accessed the tracker himself through a downloaded application, the actual job of co-ordinating the shooting fell to AM who at the time was a serving prisoner. AM had been provided with a number of iCloud accounts by his girlfriend FG in late October and FG also allegedly smuggled and conveyed into HMP an i phone ultimately used to direct the shooting during the course of a prison visit with AM. Having downloaded the tracker app on the 3rd November with the use of the iCloud accounts provided by FG onto a mobile phone, AM used the phone to call and direct those responsible for carrying out the shooting on the 4th November.
• R v KH & 7 Others [Bradford Crown Court, 2021]. KH is 1 of a number of Defendants charged with Sexual Grooming / offences (Rape etc). The complainant alleges historical sexual abuse and child sexual exploitation against her between the end of 2008 (when she was just 14) and 2010 when she turned 16 years. The alleged offences took place at the complainant’s home and at various locations around Keighley, West Yorkshire, by a number of different males, some of these men are linked by association however other offences were committed by men acting alone and in isolation.

Recent Criminal Cases

• R v MR & 4 Others (Birmingham Crown Court 2019). In R v MR and others, Elyas Patel instructed by Shuaib Khalil of Knightsbridge Solicitors secured acquittals for his client MR who was one of a number of Defendants charged with Attempted Murder, Kidnapping and Wounding With Intent. Rival factions had fought in the Balsall Heath area of the city in what detectives described as a ‘mini war’ linked to the drugs trade. The Prosecution case against MR was that he had been a participant in the group kidnap of a rival gang member who was dragged off the street and into a vehicle before he was driven to a secluded location and stabbed in the back and collar bone – the knife penetrating fully through his body. In a 7 weeks Trial before HH Judge Wall KC at Birmingham Crown Court, the Jury returned unanimous verdicts of ‘not guilty’ against Elyas’s client MR.
• R v DO & Others (York Crown Court 2019). Elyas Patel was instructed by Usama Patel, of Good & Co Solicitors, to represent a young family man of good character alleged to have been a co-conspirator within a ‘county lines’ drugs team from Leeds, operating a lucrative Class A (Heroin and Cocaine) street dealing business within the Scarborough area. The Prosecution alleged that the Defendant was one of a team of six supplying heroin and cocaine to users in Scarborough during a 4 months period in 2017. The targeted Police operation uncovered the teams: Scarborough accommodation base; motor vehicles; significant quantities of Class A drugs; drugs paraphernalia and hub mobile phones used to send out block messages to thousands of recipients. A number of the Defendants were caught on CCTV making street supplies during the period of the conspiracy. Bank accounts in the name of the partner of the alleged ringleader also revealed thousands of pounds in cash being deposited in and around banks in Scarborough before the money was systematically and shortly thereafter, withdrawn from Cash Machines in the Leeds area. The Defendant himself had been arrested in Scarborough with the alleged ‘kingpin’ of the operation whilst allegedly, carrying out mobile drug deliveries. The car in which the 2 men had travelled to Scarborough from Leeds was found to contain hundreds of wraps of class A drugs including scales, cling film and bank deposit receipts. 3 of the team pleaded guilty prior to the start of the Trial. The remaining 3 had their Trial at York Crown Court and after a Trial lasting 8 days, Elyas’s client was the only Defendant acquitted (unanimously) of all involvement.
• R v ZA & Others (Leeds Crown Court 2018). Following the lifting of reporting restrictions by the Recorder of Leeds, we are now able to report that Elyas Patel was instructed (Qamar Solicitors, Dewsbury) to represent one of 28 defendants involved in the recent series of Huddersfield sexual grooming / rape trials before HHJ Marson KC at Leeds Crown Court. The case concerned what the Prosecution alleged was the cynical exploitation of a large number of young girls who were deliberately targeted by older men who wanted to use those girls for their own sexual purposes. The girls targeted by these men were children and the defendants allegedly viewed these girls as objects to be used and abused at will. The events centred in the Huddersfield area of West Yorkshire and spanned a period in time between approximately 2004 and 2011 and involved direct evidence of the alleged abuse collectively suffered at the hands of multiple groups of men by a total of 16 girls in the Huddersfield area over that period of time. The Prosecution alleged that the girls were being exploited by these older men who bent them to submit to their will. Some felt that they were in genuine and loving relationships such was the extent to which they had been groomed by these men. Others were plied with drink and drugs to the point of being utterly unable to resist the sexual advances that were made against them. Elyas’s client was the only defendant (in his section of the multiple Trials) to be acquitted of all charges, including rape.

Languages

Urdu and Gujarati.