5 Essex Chambers

Jennifer accepts instructions in all of Chambers’ main practice areas with particular interest in police law, inquests and inquiries, and public and administrative law.

Jennifer Wright accepts instructions in all of Chambers’ core practice areas, with particular interest in police law, inquests and inquiries, data protection and information law, and public and administrative law. She is a member of the Attorney General’s C Panel of Counsel.

Jennifer represents police forces in civil claims, inquests, and public inquiries, including those which touch upon sensitive matters of national security. She frequently appears as sole counsel in civil actions against the police in the High Court and County Court, including claims in false imprisonment, assault, misfeasance, malicious prosecution, negligence, and those brought under the Equality Act 2010 and Human Rights Act 1998. She has appeared on behalf of individual forces and policing bodies in judicial review proceedings and, as a led junior, she is currently instructed by twenty police forces in the undercover cases strand of the Police Overtime Claims Litigation. ��

Jennifer is instructed as junior counsel to the inquest arising from the death of Sean Fitzgerald (a fatal shooting occurring during a police operation relating to organised crime in the West Midlands) and regularly appears as sole counsel on behalf of police forces in Article 2 and jury inquests into deaths following police contact, including inquests concerning missing persons, police pursuits, the use of s.136 of the Mental Health Act 1983, restraint, and deaths following arrest, release, and incarceration.

Jennifer regularly contributes to 5 Essex Chambers’ police law newsletter ‘The Beat’ and provides training and talks to police lawyers and specialist police units on a range of topics.

She holds a PhD in Philosophy and, before coming to the Bar, taught undergraduate philosophy programmes at King’s College London and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Please visit the 5 Essex Chamber’s website for Jennifer’s profile, which sets out full details of her practice including relevant work of note.

The Constitutional and Administrative Law Bar Association.