Our clients require robust and fearless representation through the criminal process, often at short notice. We have experience of defending a wide range of clients at all stages in the criminal process. Our experience includes:
- Acting for an individual alleged to have benefited substantially from the proceeds of fraudulent conduct. We rigorously defended confiscation proceedings and successfully and substantially reduced the value of the ‘realisable assets’ under the civil recovery process.
- Acting for an individual who maintains he has been wrongly convicted of a serious sexual offence, based on the false evidence of the victim. We were engaged following conviction and have prepared expert psychiatric evidence which together with the assistance of leading human rights counsel is being used to articulate a legal challenge aimed to give true weight to the reliability of the victim’s trial evidence.
- Regularly acting for individuals and companies whose funds and assets are seized under a wide range of statutory powers in circumstances where our clients maintain that such funds and assets are wholly from legitimate sources and for lawful purposes.
Serious crime
An example of our approach
The problem
Our client instructed us after receiving negative advice from a leading extradition law firm. He was in prison awaiting return to the US to answer serious allegations of drug importation carrying a potential prison sentence of 40 years or more.
Our approach
We undertook a thorough and sustained examination of vast volumes of evidence gathered from four foreign jurisdictions. We put together a team of lawyers around the world and led an investigation to identify and interview a range of witnesses including experts, accountants, lawyers, law enforcement officers and witnesses of fact. These efforts drove a hotly contested defence of the allegations in the English courts where we were able to demonstrate that the US authorities had failed to disclose key evidence and were seeking the extradition of the wrong individual. In the process our client secured three successful court judgments.
The solution
Our client was freed from prison and returned home, in this rare example of an unsuccessful US request for extradition.
Our client’s assessment
“Mr Raja didn’t take ‘no’ for an answer. He trusted the truth of my case even after my original solicitors let me down by their lack of motivation. He was not afraid to take on the US prosecutors when he saw the injustice of my position. He fought my case aggressively. I am now a free man. I cannot praise his service enough …”