4-5 Gray's Inn Square

Charles Foster is a specialist in regulatory, medical and public law.

He has been involved in some of the key cases in medical law in the High Court, Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

He has vast experience representing clinicians and healthcare professionals brought before the MPTS, GDC, NHS tribunals, NMC. Represents clients at subsequent appeals up to and including the Administrative Court and the Court of Appeal. He receives instructions from MPS, MDDUS, MDU and also on a privately funded basis.

He was the Chambers and Partners Junior of the Year for Professional Discipline in 2011, and has for many years been recognized as a leading barrister for Professional Discipline and Clinical Negligence in the Chambers and Partners directory and the Legal 500.

Acts in concurrent serious criminal and regulatory cases before disciplinary tribunals for the same client, facing charges of dishonesty, theft, fraud, sexual allegations, manslaughter.

Appears at Inquests including jury, representing healthcare professionals facing potentially serious criminal charges including medical manslaughter.

Instructed by Radcliffes Le Brasseur in the first UK criminal prosecution of a doctor under the Female Genital Mutilation Act (R v Dharmasena 2015);

He sits as a Recorder in the Crown Court and the County Court, and is authorized to try serious sexual offences.

He is a Fellow of Green Templeton College, a member of the Oxford Law Faculty (where he is a Visiting Professor), a Senior Research Associate at the Uehiro Institute for Practical Ethics (within the Faculty of Philosophy), and a Research Associate at the Ethox Centre and the Helex Centre (both within the Faculty of Medicine), and the Oxford Human Rights Hub (within the Faculty of Law).

His research has focused recently on questions of identity, personhood, and authenticity, on whether theories of human dignity can do any real work in the law, and on the use of intuitions in moral and legal reasoning.

From 2011-2019 he was the legal adviser to the Royal College of Physicians Committee for Ethics in Medicine, and was a member of the Royal College of Physicians Working Party on oral feeding difficulties and dilemmas. He is on the Steering Group of the Oxford Fiction and Human Rights Project, and was an adviser to the Oxford-Delft Enhancing Responsibility project. For several years he was on the Information Technology Advisory Committee, convened to advise the Court Service on the introduction of IT to the courtroom, and was a co-author of the Bar Council’s representations about IT in the courtroom.

1990 - In practice at the Bar from 11 King’s Bench Walk/6 Pump Court/Outer Temple Chambers/Serjeants’ Inn Chambers.

2005 - Recorder of the Crown Court. Subsequently authorised to sit also in the County Court, and to try serious sexual offences.

2009 - Fellow, Green Templeton College, Oxford

2018 - Visiting Professor, Faculty of Law, University of Oxford

St. John’s College, Cambridge University (BA 1984: Vet. MB, MRCVS 1987: MA 1988). Read Medical Sciences Tripos, Law Tripos and Clinical Veterinary Medicine. Sir Bartle Frere Exhibition. Constable Essay Prize.

Inns of Court School of Law: Bar Finals 1988.

PhD, University of Cambridge: Faculty of Law, 2012 (for published work on autonomy and human dignity): Examiners: John Spencer (Cambridge): Richard Huxtable (Bristol)