Foundry Chambers

Foundry Chambers

YEAR OF CALL 1969. APPOINTED KC 1992

Prosecution and defence.

During a career of over 40 years Michael specialised in serious crime for both prosecution and defence; extradition; serious fraud; criminal appeals and judicial review.  Since 2015 he has focused exclusively on appellate and advisory work.

Michael commenced his work on miscarriage of justice cases over 30 years ago in collaboration with the late Tom Sargent OBE, the legendary founder of the organisation, Justice, and with a number of city solicitors who instructed him in death row appeals to the Privy Council. He continued with this work once the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC) was established in 1997. Michael is often consulted on cases where trial counsel has advised that there were no arguable grounds and has persuaded the Court of Appeal to quash convictions in a number of such cases. Over the years he has done a substantial amount of pro bono work both in English and International cases.

Michael has conducted trial observations in Nigeria (Ken Saro-Wiwa and others 1995), Sierra Leone (treason trials 1998) and Sri Lanka (inquest into the massacre of 17 aid workers in 2006 – 2007). He was for many years, a member of the Executive Committee of the Bar Human Rights Committee and a Trustee of the Redress Trust. He has written pro bono numerous opinions and amicus briefs in relation to cases in Malaysia, USA, India, Sierra Leone, Nigeria and Hong Kong and in (2016) a damning critique of the controversial findings by a medical tribunal against the noted neuropathologist, Dr Waney Squier.

For over two decades Michael campaigned to persuade the CCRC to refer back to the Court of Appeal the conviction for murder of a mentally challenged youth, Oliver Campbell. A first application to the CCRC in 2003 failed. But last year the CCRC finally agreed to refer the case in the light of new psychiatric evidence. Over the years Michael has worked with the BBC to publicise the case in two powerful pieces – a documentary in 2001 and an analysis on BBC Newsnight in April 2021.

See www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOIXcqujCx0 and www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p099z94b.

This is not the only case where Michael has persuaded the CCRC to refer convictions after it first declined to do so. The other is that of Winter and Winter, a father and son convicted in 2009 of the manslaughter of two men killed in an explosion at a fireworks factory.

Appointments

King’s Counsel 1992 Recorder of the Crown Court1995 – 2014 Special Advocate in terrorism cases 2008 – 2014

Memberships

CBA Amnesty Justice

Southgate Grammar school First class honours degree in jurisprudence from Oxford University