Barristers recognised for their keen intellect and proficiency across all of the fields they practise in, they take complex arguments and applications to the High Court with great effect.
Overview
QEB Hollis Whiteman brings first-class advocacy and extensive experience to judicial review applications, with an emphasis on issues arising from the investigation and prosecution of criminal cases, regulatory and police misconduct matters, inquests and prison Law.
Our experienced team work on behalf of claimants, defendants and interested parties including individuals, company directors, government bodies and regulators.
Members of Chambers offer representation at all levels of seniority and from the very earliest stages, including advising clients on pre-action procedures.
Our Experience
Our work in Public Law has developed from our established reputation within the fields from which applications have originated. We have extensive experience as interested parties, claimants/applicants and defendants/respondents in judicial reviews arising from: regulatory proceedings (Waney Squier; Nakash; Jeffry); private prosecutions (Haigh); general crime (Sowande); and corporate & financial crime (Tchenguiz; River East Supplies Ltd). We have experience of all grounds of judicial review (illegality, irrationality and unfairness), all types of public bodies and through all stages of the process, from ‘letter before action’, to permission and ultimately full hearing.
Chambers has particular experience of sensitive, high-profile cases that have attracted media interest and that are of considerable importance to the Individual or public body concerned. We have been instructed in leading cases involving issues such as prosecutorial obligations when obtaining search warrants in complex fraud cases, to the rights of Individuals when complaining against public bodies. Chambers’ Administrative Court work includes applications to state a case from the Magistrates’ Court.
Within our other fields of expertise, we have become the go-to set for judicial review and our reputation continues to expand.
Notable Cases
R (Haigh) v City of Westminster Magistrates' Court (2017) EWHC 232
Adrian Darbishire QC appeared on behalf of an interested party in an application for judicial review concerning the duties upon Individuals bringing private prosecutions and the discretion to make a costs order. The costs order followed the withdrawal of what was held to be 'an unnecessary or improper' private prosecution against Senior Executives of an investment house in Dubai, and a solicitor and partner in the Dubai office of a US Law Firm, then acting for the investment house.
R (on the Application of Jeffrey) v The Independent Police Complaints Commission (2017) EWHC 102 (Admin)
Susannah Stevens (assisted by Nadesh Karu, as Disclosure Junior) acted on behalf of a police federation representative who successfully challenged the IPCC’s investigation into his complaints about their conduct. The Federation representative had assisted officers who had given evidence during the Sean Rigg Inquest. He was arrested, following an IPCC-led investigation, for perverting the course of justice on the basis of his telephone contact with officers who were suspected to have colluded about their evidence at the inquest.
Sowande v CPS (2017)
Polly Dyer appeared in a case stated that addressed citizens’ power to arrest under s. 24A(1)(b) of PACE. The case of R v Self (Graham) (1992) 1 WLR 657 was considered.
R (River East Supplies Ltd) v Chief Constable of Nottinghamshire Police, UK Central Authority intervening (2016)
Tom Doble successfully challenged the lawfulness of a search warrant executed at the premises of an international pharmaceutical company, pursuant to an MLA request issued by the US FDA, resulting in the return of all seized materials. Further proceedings are ongoing, challenging the subsequent issue of a production order.
R (on the Application of Nakash) v Metropolitan Police Service (2015) ACD 36
Adrian Darbishire QC represented a doctor who judicially reviewed the decision of the police to disclose information to the GMC that had been obtained unlawfully following a search.
R (on the Application of TVP) v PAT & Squire
Alexandra Felix defended a judicial review application, as an interested party, that concerned the decision of a Police Appeals Tribunal that a misconduct panel had erred in admitting hearsay evidence.
R (on the Application of Squier) v the GMC (2015) EWHC 299 (Admin)
Tom Kark QC and Alexandra Felix appeared on behalf of the GMC in an application for judicial review of two decisions of the Fitness to Practise Panel concerning first, the admissibility of previous judgments of the High Court and the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, and secondly, the particularisation of the charges. The claimant was an expert consultant paediatric neuropathologist who had given evidence in six cases of alleged non-accidental head injury to infants, "shaken-baby syndrome."
R (on the Application of Rawlinson and Hunter Trustees) v Central Criminal Court; R (on the Application of Tchenguiz) v Director of Serious Fraud Office (2012) EWHC 2254 (Admin)
Mark Ellison QC appeared on behalf of the Serious Fraud Office in relation to a judicial review concerning the powers of the SFO when applying for the issue of a search warrant, in cases involving allegations of serious fraud in the financial markets. The allegations followed the collapse of what was then the largest Icelandic bank.
