Further to the acquittal of Mr Jacobs who faced trial for the murder of PC Blakelock last week, represented by Tony Meisels, LNL also had the following successes last week:

Misconduct in a Public Office

No action was taken against a former News of The World Journalist facing an allegation of conspiring to commit misconduct in a public office. The allegation was that the journalist paid public officials for information in relation to high profile patients in Broadmoor. The CPS decided that it would not be in the public interest to prosecute on the basis of our client’s health issues.

Working closely with the excellent leading independent consultant psychiatrist Dr Mike Alcock, we worked consistently for over 16 months to collate a complete range of specialist reports in order to persuade the CPS not to continue with the prosecution. We were only able to do because the client paid privately for these reports, as legal aid is not available to assist anyone in a similar situation.

Siobhain Egan had conduct of this case.

Supply Of Class A Drugs

Penny Muir, instructing the stupendous Martin Lewis of counsel (the Senior Partner’s brother), represented a client at Snaresbrook Crown Court charged as part of Operation Carbon, a large-scale, covert operation run in the East End by the Metropolitan Police with the aim of disrupting the supply of Class A drugs.

The case against our client was that he had been identified by an undercover officer as a man who had supplied drugs to him. This officer was one of a number who purported to identify him as a drug supplier. As a result he was facing a possible sentence in excess of ten years if convicted. We believed the identification to be tainted due to a breach of Code D of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, so made an application to have the evidence excluded. We also felt that there had been poor disclosure of information and fought hard with the prosecution over this.

The judge ruled in our favour and as a result of the ruling, the Crown decided to offer no evidence against our client in relation to any of the charges against him. Our client was very relieved and happy with the result!

Robbery

Paul Mason and the excellent Paul Crampin of counsel secured the acquittal of Paul’s client who faced two allegations of robbery at Basildon Crown Court.

Armed Robbery

Sean Reilly instructed yet another Reilly brother, Eiran, the brilliant Higher Rights Advocate, who secured the acquittal of an individual facing three counts of armed robbery. This was a five-week trial and the case was investigated by the Met’s Flying Squad (specialist armed robbery squad) and included complex evidence such as cell site evidence.