St Pauls Chambers

onathan Sandiford KC was called to the bar in 1992 and was made Silk in 2020.

As a junior, Jonathan was a CPS Grade 4 Prosecutor with over 25 years’ experience, in complex and sensitive cases including Trading Standards prosecutions, fraud, murder, terrorism, hate crimes (racial, religious and sexual orientation) and large scale drug dealing.

Before taking Silk, Jonathan regularly prosecuted on behalf of the CPS Special Crime and Counter Terrorist Division as well as the eCrime Team of the National Trading Standards Board.

Between March 2014 and September 2016, he was retained by the Crown Prosecution Service to advise the IPCC in respect of the investigation into alleged misconduct by South Yorkshire Police and others in the aftermath of the Hillsborough Stadium disaster.

In 2015, he was instructed as Junior Counsel to prosecute youngest ever defendant charged and convicted of terrorism offences in the UK for inciting another to launch a murderous attack on the ANZAC Day Parade in Melbourne, Australia.

He has prosecuted a number of cases involving the stirring up of racial, religious and other forms of hatred via the internet including the leading case of Sheppard and Whittle [2010] 1 Cr.App.R 26 in the Crown Court and later the Court of Appeal.

In 2016-2017, Jonathan was instructed to prosecute two defendants first case in the United Kingdom involving the importation and supply via the Dark Web of the highly concentrated and dangerous opioid, Fentanyl.

In 2017, Jonathan successfully prosecuted a defendant who was stopped at Manchester Airport as he tried to smuggle a viable improvised explosive device (IED) onto a Ryanair aeroplane at Manchester Airport with the intention of detonating it in flight.

In 2009, Jonathan was one of the youngest persons to be appointed to sit as a Recorder (part time judge) on the North Eastern Circuit.