Anna Morris > Garden Court Chambers > London, England > Barrister Profile

The members of Garden Court North Chambers specialise in representing claimants, especially vulnerable individuals and community groups, in a variety of administrative and public law challenges, encompassing cases surrounding human rights, immigration and asylum, discrimination, prison law, and social welfare. Among its silks, Pete Weatherby KC‘s practice predominately focuses on public law, and Anna Morris KC has expertise in claims against public authorities on behalf of children and vulnerable adults. Morris is currently active in a number of inquests and civil claims surrounding the deaths of vulnerable mental health patients who were under the care of Tees, Esk, and Wear Valleys NHS Trust; she has lodged grounds for judicial review following the Secretary of State for Health’s decision not to hold a public inquiry into these deaths. Turning to the set’s strong bench of juniors, Vijay Jagadesham is skilled at representing unaccompanied asylum-seekers, torture-survivors, and those suffering from significant mental and physical health issues. Social security law specialist Tom Royston has a strong track record of being parts of counsel team before the Supreme Court, and he represented the claimant in R (Timson) v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, in which the Court of Appeal decided that the SSWP’s failure to contact claimants before deducting their benefits to repay their utility bill debts was procedurally unfair. Kate Stone is skilled in cases engaging right to life under 2 of the ECHR.

Garden Court North Chambers is praised as ‘a go-to chambers for inquests and inquiries’, and its members have significant expertise in representing bereaved families. Both public law specialist Pete Weatherby KC and Anna Morris KC are representing the Covid-19 Bereaved Families 4 Justice UK group at the public inquiry into the handling of the pandemic, as is inquest practitioner Kate Stone; she is especially skilled in representing bereaved families in inquests that engage Article 2 of the ECHR. One of the rising starts of the set, Lily Lewis, has a growing public law practice, and she was instructed on the four-day inquest arising from the death of 14-year-old Mia Janin, who died following allegedly being bullied by other pupils at JFS, a London secondary school, in a Snapchat group.