Peter Wilson > Chambers of Richard Pratt KC > Liverpool, England > Barrister Profile

Peter Wilson

Work Department

Crime
family

Position

Peter joined Chambers in September 2019 following his successful completion of pupillage under the supervision of Mr Jonathan Duffy. During this time, he observed a wide variety of cases ranging from fraud and multi-handed drugs conspiracies to offences under the OAPA and Theft Act. Throughout his second six, Peter regularly appeared in the Magistrates’ and Crown Court and also the Family Court.

 

Prior to commencing pupillage Peter was an intern at the Arizona Capital Representation Project working on post-conviction death penalty appeals and life without parole cases for juveniles. He has since returned to assist in the hosting of the Bryan R. Shechmeister Death Penalty College at Santa Clara University, California, where teams from across the US are trained in every facet of capital defence on State and Federal level.

 

Peter also provides training for Amicus ALJ, primarily on Death Penalty appeals.

 

Criminal Law

 

Peter acts for both the prosecution and defence in all matters of criminal law including:

• Assault offences;
• Sexual offences;
• Drug offences;
• Dishonesty offences;
• Motoring offences;

He regularly appears in both the Magistrates’ and Crown Court conducting trials, sentences and appeals. Peter has often taken cases on at short notice and provides advice for both professional and lay clients.

Peter also has experience of representing vulnerable clients in fitness to plead proceedings.

He is currently a Level 2 CPS Panel Advocate.

Family Law

 

Since joining Chambers as a tenant. Peter’s practice includes:

 

• Representing both parents and children in both private and public law proceedings
• Representing Local Authorities in public law proceedings
• Cases including contested final hearings, Interim removals, cases involving non accidental injuries, cases involving allegations of sexual abuse, neglect, cases with issues in respect of designation, and finding of fact hearings
• Experience in applications for non-molestation orders and occupation orders
• Carrying out legal research and drafting up legal documents including opinions, threshold documents and skeleton arguments for parents and local authorities.

Previous Experience

Arizona Capital Representation Project
Assisted in preparation of post-conviction petitions in death penalty cases and spoke with come clients daily. As well as this, he was part of a team that hosted the Bryan R. Shecchmeister Death Penalty College where he assisted in the training of a number of capital defence teams from across the US, including those with clients in Guantanamo Bay.

He continue to work for the project remotely from the UK and has recently returned from once again hosting the aforementioned Death Penalty College in August 2019.

LPC Law County Court Advocate: 

The experience of dealing with Judges on a daily basis on a range of live cases, as well as extracting key facts from the evidence provided to help win the case, and being pitted against both litigants-in-person and Counsel before pupillage sharpened up his advocacy and analytical skills immeasurably. In total he conducted over 170 hearing ranging from small claims trial and stage threes to insolvency and housing matters.

Godfrey Cooray Associates, Sri Lanka

He experienced drafting, conferencing and observed advocacy in family, crime and human rights and tort (including when a ship crashed into the harbour due to flooding, resulting in an argument that it was an ‘act of god’). This experienced in a foreign jurisdictions greatly improved his ability to connect and conference with people from a wide variety of backgrounds.

 

Career

Call: 2017

Education

Northumbria University M/Law Exempting (BPTC) 2013 -2017

First Class Honours Degree – Very Competent BPTC (77%)

Short Essay Competition winner at Northumbria University BPTC (2015)

 Family Law Advocacy Competition winner at Northumbria University BPTC (2015)