Peter Skelton KC KC > 1 Crown Office Row > London, England > Barrister Profile
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Peter Skelton KC KC
Position
Peter Skelton KC’s practice encompasses public inquiries, inquests, human rights litigation, clinical negligence, judicial review, national security and personal injury litigation, with a particular emphasis on multi-party actions and claims arising in foreign jurisdictions. He acts for both claimants and defendants.
Peter has been instructed in several major public inquiries over the last 20 years, most recently the Undercover Policing Inquiry (for the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police), the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (as counsel to the inquiry), the Leveson Inquiry (for the Mayor’s Office of Policing and Crime), the Al-Sweady Inquiry (for Iraqi judges), and the Mid Staffordshire NHS Foundation Trust Public Inquiry (for two national healthcare charities). He has previously represented bereaved families in the Bristol Royal Infirmary Inquiry and the Royal Liverpool Children’s Inquiry. From 2005 to 2009, he was counsel to the Rosemary Nelson Inquiry, which investigated allegations of state collusion in the solicitor’s murder.
In recent years, Peter has also acted for groups of victims and survivors of sexual abuse by David Fuller, Jimmy Savile and Max Clifford. He has also represented claimants in several other high-profile group actions, including Ian Paterson (breast surgery) and Rob Jones (gynaecological surgery). Previously, he acted for the claimants in the Winterbourne View Litigation the Cornwall Partnership Trust Litigation (institutional neglect and abuse), and the Nationwide Organ Group Litigation.
On the defendant side, Peter has acted for the Metropolitan Police in a group actions arising allegations of inappropriate sexual liaisons by undercover police officers, and in the claims brought by the families of the four victims of serial killer Stephen Port. He has also represented the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the Kenyan Emergency Group Litigation, which involved allegations of mistreatment by the Colonial Government of Kenya in the 1950s; and was instructed by an international mining corporation in a multi-party human rights claim arising from allegations of police brutality in Sierra Leone.
Career
Call: 1997; KC: 2016; Middle Temple.
Contributing author to ‘Public Inquiries’ (published by OUP in 2011).
Languages
Basic French.
Memberships
PNBA; PIBA.
Education
Trent College, Nottingham; University of York (BA First class); University of Cambridge (MPhil).
Lawyer Rankings
London Bar > Inquests and inquiries
(Leading Silks)Ranked: Tier 1Peter Skelton KC – 1 Crown Office Row ‘Peter is a first rate draftsman with a real flair for capturing complicated questions in clear and easily-understood prose.’
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.