Neil Sheldon KC KC > 1 Crown Office Row > London, England > Barrister Profile
1 Crown Office Row Offices
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Neil Sheldon KC KC
Position
Neil Sheldon KC is recommended by the directories as a leading silk in a broad range of practice areas, including public & administrative law, public inquiries & inquests, professional discipline, and clinical negligence.
He has acted in many of the most important public inquiries and inquests of recent years including the Inquests into the terrorist attacks on Fishmongers’ Hall, Westminster Bridge, London Bridge and Manchester Arena, the Victoria Climbie Inquiry, the Zahid Mubarak Inquiry, the Al Swaedy Inquiry, the Iraq Inquiry and the Alexander Litvinenko Inquiry. He is currently acting for the NCA and a number of government departments in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). He is instructed by the Cabinet Office in the Grenfell Tower Inquiry, by a leading medical defence union in the Infected Blood Inquiry and as leading counsel for the Home Office in the Undercover Policing Inquiry.
Neil was first appointed by the Attorney General as junior counsel to the crown in 2002, and has been on the A Panel since 2010. He undertakes a range of high profile work for a variety of government departments. He has particular experience of national security work, and holds developed vetted (DV) security clearance.
He has extensive experience of advocacy in the higher courts. He has appeared in over 50 cases in the Court of Appeal, and in a number of the most important recent human rights appeals in the Supreme Court. Neil is currently instructed in a number of forthcoming Supreme Court appeals, and several cases before the European Court of Human Rights.
Career
Call: 1998; KC: 2019; Gray’s Inn (Prince of Wales scholar)
Junior counsel to the Crown (A Panel); junior counsel to Victoria Climbie inquiry; junior counsel to Zahid Muharek inquiry.
Publications of note: ‘ECHR and Medical Law’ (with Philip Havers KC).
Languages
Working knowledge French, German.
Education
Lancing College; Trinity Hall, Cambridge (1995 BA History; 1999 MA History); City University (1996 Diploma in Law).
Leisure
Cricket, skiing, squash, travel.
Lawyer Rankings
London Bar > Inquests and inquiries
(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 2Neil Sheldon KC – 1 Crown Office Row ‘Neil is brilliant. He is calm and focused in what can be very distressing and difficult circumstances.’
1 Crown Office Row, an ‘excellent chambers with huge depth of barristers‘, combines experience of human rights law, clinical negligence, and personal injury with stand-out expertise in inquests and inquiries: Peter Skelton KC is currently acting in a number of major inquests and inquiries, including for families of victims in the Thirwall Inquiry into deaths connected to the murder of babies at the Countess of Chester Hospital, and for the Metropolitan Police in the Undercover Policing Inquiry. Neil Sheldon KC is acting for UK Government Investments (the government-owned holding company which is the Post Office’s sole shareholder) in the Police Office Horizon IT Inquiry, while in inquests work, Matthew Hill acts for the families of the deceased in the 2020 Reading terror attack. Leanne Woods, experienced in inquests, was instructed for the Department of Health and Social Care in the infected blood inquiry.
London Bar > Professional disciplinary and regulatory law
(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 4London Bar > Clinical negligence
(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 4Neil Sheldon KC –1 Crown Office Row ‘Neil has a sharp mind, makes clients feel at ease and explains complex issues in an understandable way. He is a tough negotiator and has been responsible for some of his instructing solicitors’ biggest successes – they cannot rate him highly enough.’
A ‘leading clinical negligence set’, 1 Crown Office Row is highlighted for ‘strength in depth‘ across the whole of the range of clinical litigation the set’s silks and juniors operate in. The team is active in disputes involving NHS, private healthcare providers, along with medical defence organisations in both domestic and cross-border cases. Typically active in complex, multi-layered disputes, the set represents clients and defendants in birth injury mandates, including severe cerebral palsy cases. In addition, the set’s practitioners are experienced in a range of spinal cord, surgical errors, cardiac and medicinal issues litigation. Notably, Elizabeth-Anne Gumbel KC and Neil Sheldon KC represented a claimant in CDE v Surrey and Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust, a high value birth injury case that reached the Court of Appeal involving the application of the Bolam and Bolitho tests.