Hugh Davies OBE KC

Hugh Davies KC has achieved national recognition in the practice areas of crime; professional discipline; inquests and public inquiries; and police related misconduct and regulatory proceedings.

In recent history he has led major reviews into institutional safeguarding failures, and is engaged in related multi-agency national initiatives including into the regulation of international aid workers.

SFO cases include the defence of the most senior US-based Barclays trader accused of manipulating the $Libor rate.

He has extensive experience of prosecuting and defending serious crime of all types, including leading multi-handed prosecutions involving serious organised crime investigated by national policing agencies. He has been at the forefront of criminal proceedings involving cybercrime. He regularly prosecutes homicide offences at the Central Criminal Court.

In relation to professional misconduct, the nature and extent of his work as to the actions and accountability of police forces and police officers, including defending charges of manslaughter, corruption, attempts to pervert the course of justice, and misconduct in public office, is reflected in the comments made by national directories. He has extensive experience advising and representing police officers at public inquiries; inquests; during IPCC investigations; internal disciplinary proceedings; and associated judicial review proceedings, and is co-author of the leading OUP practitioner textbook Police Misconduct, Complaints, and Public Regulation.

Other professional misconduct work includes proceedings against medical practitioners arising from alleged clinical negligence. This reflects extensive experience of mastering subject matter relating to pathology, clinical norms and causation from the criminal and coronial jurisdictions.

He was instructed as Counsel to the Inquest into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian former KGB officer allegedly poisoned by polonium 210 in London in 2006.

In 2011 he was awarded an OBE for services to children and young people reflecting his role as voluntary legal adviser to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP). In 2013 he was lead author of an ACPO commissioned multi-specialist report that resulted in the Government enacting legislative reform of the sexual civil prevention order regime in the Anti-Social Behaviour Crime and Policing Act 2014.

He advises institutions as to safeguarding responsibilities and performance and has led major independent reviews into practices within individual organisations and following specific incidents (for example, into the conduct of William Vahey at Southbank International School, and the governance and management of RNIB following statutory intervention at RNIB Pears Centre in 2018). He is a member of Government-led multi-agency national groups directed at regulation of institutional safeguarding in the UK, and (separately) the development of an international aid worker registration/passport scheme following the London 2018 international conference.

Called 1990, Lincoln’s Inn. Silk 2013. CBA working party into the role of Treasury Counsel (2001); CBA working party re Home Office consultation ‘Modernising police powers to meet community needs’ (2004); legal advisor to the Children’s Charities Coalition for Internet Safety (CHIS) (2005-). Chair of ACPO (Association of Chief Police Officers) inter-agency legal advisory panel on internet and international crimes against children (2008-); member of the ACPO Combating Child Abuse on the Internet (CCAI) committee and travelling sex offenders working group (2007-); head of the Bar Human Rights Committee Child Rights Unit (2009-). In 2012, Hugh Davies was awarded an OBE for services to children and young people, in his capacity as adviser to the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP).

Reading School; Pembroke College, Oxford (1988 BA Hons Jurisprudence; Domus Scholar).