Criminal Defence

The Rothera Dowson Criminal Law Department is part of a larger general practice company with a strong litigation and commercial bias and as such we believe that we have some advantages over the large dedicated criminal law firms favoured by the Criminal Defence Service, which provides funding for most criminal cases in the courts of England and Wales.

Until May 2006 we were franchised by the Legal Services Commission, meeting their quality assurance standards and being rated as a category 1 legal aid supplier. At the end of May we terminated our franchise because of concerns we have had for some years about the direction which criminal legal aid was taking. We now only act for paying clients, whilst continuing to offer the quality service which we always have offered to all our clients.

At the head of our team are two senior solicitors who have worked in criminal law for more than 30 years each, one of whom is a solicitor advocate who regularly presents cases for clients in the Crown Court instead of employing barristers. We find that by concentrating on the quality of our advocacy most of our clients who deny the charges against them are acquitted. In fact, our acquittal rate is running at approximately 70 per cent for both the Magistrates and Crown Court. This success rate is achieved by careful preparation and the ability to see and exploit difficulties in the prosecution case.

Recent examples of our work:

An amateur footballer who seriously injured an opponent in a clumsy tackle was taken to the Crown Court charged with assault occasioning grievous bodily harm, carrying a potential prison sentence up to a maximum of five years. Despite the referee and his assistants giving their opinion that the tackle was a deliberate assault, our client was acquitted after a four day trial in which he was represented by our solicitor advocate who has wide experience of applying the law to sporting situations and is a founder member of the British Association for Sport and the Law, a member of the Sports Dispute Resolution Panel and the Guild of Sport, and has lectured and written on legal liability for sporting injuries.
In a recent high-profile case involving two deaths at work we represented two clients, one charged with manslaughter and the other with Health and Safety offences. The manslaughter client was found not guilty after a full trial at which he was represented by Queen's Counsel. The Health and Safety defendant, represented by our solicitor advocate, was acquitted at the close of the prosecution case because our knowledge of employment law enabled us to satisfy the Judge that he was not an "employee" in the meaning required by the Health and Safety Acts: an error not picked up by the prosecution at any time prior to the start of the trial.
Another client was one of nine charged with conspiracy to import a large quantity of cannabis, an offence carrying several years' imprisonment on conviction. Careful examination of the prosecution evidence during six weeks of the prosecution case at the Leicester Crown Court enabled us to persuade the Judge that our client had no case to answer and he was found not guilty at the close of the prosecution case. Several other defendants were convicted and received long sentences of imprisonment.
Finally, we have recently acted in two cases involving dangerous driving. In one of them the client was charged with causing two deaths by dangerous driving, again with the potential for a disastrous prison sentence. Correct selection of an expert to counter the prosecution case enabled us to secure an acquittal, again at the close of the prosecution case and without our client going through the ordeal of giving evidence. In the second case our client found himself in the Crown Court facing an allegation of dangerous driving by racing through a local town centre. On this occasion our knowledge of motoring and Road Traffic Law enabled us to persuade the prosecution that they had insufficient evidence, without the need for the Judge to give a ruling.

Although we pride ourselves on the quality of our advocacy, it is noticeable that in only one of the above cases, the footballer, were we required to deploy our advocacy skills and persuade a jury to acquit after a full trial.

Naturally, the police do get it right quite a lot of the time and a significant proportion of criminal clients wish to plead guilty as charged. In those cases we pay the same careful attention to preparation and advocacy in securing the sentence which best fits the circumstances of the crime and the defendant.