Sonia is an experienced paralegal having joined the firm in 2000 and has been an accredited police station representative since 2001.

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“Thank you for everything you have done for us…the impact of your work and dedication to which you do daily has given us our lives back”.

“Thank you so much for your tireless efforts and meticulous attention to detail in this case…Whatever the outcome, you have been amazing”.

“A quick note to express my gratitude to you and your team. Words cannot explain how much yesterday’s outcome has meant to our family”.

“I really, really appreciate the hard work you all put in. Forever grateful”.

R v MC & Others  Woolwich Crown Court
Murder.  Acquittal secured for one of five defendants in Operation Sevenstones, an allegation of murder where the victim was stabbed over 32 times in an incident of inter-gang tit-for-tat attacks in south London. Painstaking assessment of CCTV and pathological evidence led to an alternative theory as to the timing of the fatal wounds not raised in two previous trials by defence teams representing other defendants.  The case also involved expert evidence on drill music with the defendant being a popular drill artist.  Defence submissions successfully excluded his drill lyrics from trial as wholly prejudicial when it was demonstrated that lyrics which predated the offence could be said to be just as ‘relevant’ as those which post-dated the murder, and also as it was shown that lyrics said to relate to certain evidence could not have done as the evidence in question had not been served at the time of the track’s release.   

R v AM  Isleworth Crown Court
Arson with intent to endanger life.  Represented a 79 year old woman of good character charged with arson with intent to endanger life after she deliberately set fire to a multi-storey block of flats in the early hours following a dispute with her landlord.

R v CM  Southwark Crown Court
Child cruelty.  Successful defence of a mother accused of child cruelty by deliberately feeding her diabetic child sugar, causing emergency admission to hospital, when it became evident that the mother was being blamed for the actions of the child himself.

R v JH  Kingston Crown Court
Section 18 GBH with intent.  Represented a female defendant of good character accused of s.18 wounding with intent after ‘glassing’ another female on a nightclub dancefloor causing permanent eye injury. Despite conviction, a sentence of only 3.5 years’ imprisonment was passed despite new sentencing guidelines indicating a much higher sentence was appropriate.  The Attorney General initially sought to review the sentence but this was withdrawn after defence representations. 

R v JF  Kingston Crown Court
Section.18 GBH with intent & child cruelty.  Successful defence of a step-father accused of GBH and child cruelty to his 18 month old step-daughter following a complex and lengthy investigation by the police and Family Court. This followed an acquittal several monthly previously at the same court of assault allegations against the child’s mother in which she had accused the defendant of causing the miscarriage of their unborn child, defence requests for her medical records showing that she had, in fact, had an elective abortion.

Met Police v GM  
Murder/manslaughter.  Represented a mother under police investigation for the suspected “baby shaking syndrome” death of her son with complex medical issues involved. 

R v CK  Isleworth Crown Court
Stalking. With Philip Hill, represented a man accused of stalking TV presenter Christine Lampard.

R v CH  Blackfriars Crown Court
Death by dangerous driving. Represented a man of good character charged with causing the death by dangerous driving of a pensioner he struck as he crossed a pedestrian crossing. Prosecution expert evidence concluded that the defendant was speeding, but a defence expert was instructed who demonstrated that the calculations used by the prosecution expert were out-dated and gave a misleading conclusion.  Following acceptance of the defence expert report, the charge was reduced to careless driving and the defendant fined.

R v CK  Kingston Crown Court
Section 18 GBH with intent. Client acquitted of s.18 GBH at trial, receiving a Suspended Sentence Order for the less serious s.20 offence of unlawful wounding to which he had earlier pleaded guilty following a fight in which a fellow student’s jaw was broken.

R v DB  Isleworth Crown Court
Child cruelty.  Successfully persuaded the CPS to offer no evidence against a father of good character accused by his daughter of using unlawful and excessive violence by way of chastisement against her and her severely autistic brother, after a Social Services investigation was closed with no ongoing concerns and due to inconsistencies in her account. 

R v JN & KN  Wood Green Crown Court
Section 18 GBH with intent.  Represented two brothers accused of wounding with intent following an alleged reprisal attack in a family feud where the complainant was stabbed on a busy street in broad daylight.  Guilty pleas to alternative offences and exceptional personal mitigation on behalf of one of the brothers resulted in one significantly reduced custodial sentence and one suspended sentence.

R v XX  Wood Green Crown Court
Section 18 GBH with intent.  Represented a juvenile defendant accused of s.18 wounding with intent where two men had allegedly rushed into a house from behind her and assaulted the occupants with weapons causing serious injuries.  Client acquitted following a successful submission of ‘no case to answer’ on the basis there was no evidence of a joint enterprise with the two unknown assailants.

R v LA & Others  Chelmsford Crown Court (Ongoing)
Conspiracy to import and supply class A drugs.  Representing one of 14 defendants charged with a multiplicity of offences concerning the importation and supply of hundreds of kilos of cocaine and cannabis as investigated by the NCA, the case originally arising from Encrochat. 

R v LA & JN & Others  Basildon Crown Court (Ongoing)
Conspiracy to supply class A & B drugs.  Representing two of six defendants, one being the alleged leader of an Organised Crime Group charged with large scale drugs supply involving multiple kilos of class A drugs, significant amounts of cannabis together with related firearms and money laundering allegations.

R v JW & Others  Newcastle Crown Court
Conspiracy to supply class A drugs.  Represented the fourth of four defendants in what was believed to be the largest single seizure of cocaine in the North East at the time. Despite being joined to the case several months after the first three defendants which resulted in a much shorter period to prepare, swift case preparation and realistic advice resulted in this defendant being the only one to receive full credit for his guilty pleas.  In subsequent confiscation proceedings the alleged £11 million benefit figure was successfully reduced to £400,000.

R v LA & Others  Southwark Crown Court
Conspiracy to supply class A drugs & money laundering.  Represented the first of nine defendants in a large scale conspiracy to launder money and supply multiple kilos of class A and B drugs with an estimated street value of over £1.6 million.

R v LN  Reading Crown Court
Supply class A drugs.  Achieved rare Conditional Discharge for class A drug supply where the charges were brought late, the defendant having served a sentence for similar offences committed both before and after the instant charges.

R v LA  Maidstone Crown Court
Supply class A drugs.  Successful mitigation resulted in a Suspended Sentence Order for a vulnerable young man who pleaded guilty to multiple counts of class A drug supply due to his personal circumstances, including neurodivergence issues.<

 R v DB  Swindon Crown Court
Conspiracy to supply class A drugs.  Achieved a sentence of 2y10m for a defendant with previous convictions for significant conspiracy to supply class A drugs offences accused of further similar ‘county lines’ offences. Careful assessment of the evidence hugely reduced the nature and scope of the offences such that limited pleas were accepted by the CPS and the sentence passed was a fraction of that originally faced.

R v PM  Winchester Crown Court
Conspiracy to supply class A drugs.  Represented a defendant who pleaded guilty to conspiring to supply class A drugs in a ‘county lines’ case.  The CPS provided ‘expert’ witness evidence estimating the value of the conspiracy many times over what the evidence suggested.  A thorough assessment of the evidence and detailed Basis of Plea reducing the value was accepted by the sentencing judge without the need either for a defence expert witness or contested Newton hearing.  <

R v RW  Maidstone Crown Court
Supply class A drugs.  Successfully persuaded the sentencing judge not to impose a “3rd strike” 7 year minimum sentence for serious drug trafficking offences due to the personal circumstances of the defendant.

R v M – Inner London Crown Court
Possession/distribution of indecent images. Secured a Community Order for a woman who shared indecent images with a friend as a warning about such behaviour within their community, unaware that this did not constitute a legal defence. Translation of the messages accompanying the images provided significant mitigation, clarifying her intention behind sharing them

R v C – Inner London Crown Court
Rape.  Represented a young professional of previous good character accused of rape by his ex-girlfriend. The complainant alleged that she had “pretended” to be asleep “to see how far he would go.” The defendant maintained that the complainant was awake and consenting, and that he immediately withdrew when she changed her mind. The client was acquitted.< 

R v XX  X Crown Court (Ongoing)
Rape.  Representing a young man accused of rape where disclosure requests about the complainant have revealed similar previous complaints.  

R v GH  Maidstone Crown Court
Rape.  With Raymond Shaw, represented a man facing a retrial for allegedly raping his partner.  He had been convicted at his original trial when represented by another firm, that conviction being overturned at the Court of Appeal following our submissions over serious issues with regard to the quality of his original representation. The simple, but previously overlooked, decision to "act out" the alleged rape demonstrated what the defendant was accused of was not physically possible.  The jury took only an hour to acquit him at his retrial. 

R v BH  Woolwich Crown Court
Rape.  Successful defence on the basis of consent of a young man of good character accused of raping his ex-girlfriend where the prosecution sought to use a texted apology as purported ‘confession’ evidence. 

R v EB & Others  Southwark Crown Court
Conspiracy to traffic for sexual exploitation.  The defendant, a non-UK national, was accused of assisting in the running of a brothel in which females were alleged to have been trafficked in from eastern Europe and then forcibly ‘put to work’.  The defendant claimed that the female he was alleged to be a ‘minder’ for was choosing to engage in sex work and he was simply a flatmate of her and his co-defendants. Despite red flags within the prosecution evidence from the outset that the complainant was not being honest, it took many months of persistent representations and disclosure requests before police officers flew abroad to make enquiries in order to answer our requests, those enquiries resulting in ‘no evidence being offered’ and not guilty verdicts being entered shortly before trial. <

Met Police v AB
Sexual assault on children.  Represented a nurse accused of sexually assaulting her neighbour’s children. Investigation closed after the children admitted inventing the allegations, leaving significant trauma in their wake.

R v TH  Manchester Minshull Street Crown Court
Sexual assault on an adult.  Represented a non-UK national accused of sexually assaulting a fellow passenger on a plane flying into the UK.

R v IM & Others  Inner London Crown Court
Conspiracy to steal.  Represented one of 5 defendants charged with conspiracy to steal from cars located in car parks throughout central London, with property stolen to a value of over £200,000. Police believed that the gang were responsible for thefts totalling £millions and claimed that similar thefts in the area decreased by 85% following their arrests.  Guilty pleas were entered to a number of substantive offences of theft and no evidence was offered by the Crown on the conspiracy.<

R v LA  Luton Crown Court
Conspiracy to defraud.  Represented one of seven defendants charged with conspiracy to defraud in what the Crown Prosecution Service described as a “sophisticated inheritance scam” worth over £300,000.  Successfully reduced the charges to reflect the defendant’s limited involvement.

R v AC  Highbury Corner Youth Court
Theft & possession of an offensive weapon.  Successful defence of a vulnerable youth charged with e-bike enabled mobile phone thefts in the West End of London whilst in possession of a machete on the basis he was a victim of modern slavery, the youth at one time being a London borough’s most frequently reported missing child. 

R v CS  Central Criminal Court
Conspiracy to defraud.  Represented a defendant charged with conspiracy to defraud by use of ‘transaction reversal fraud’ at ATMs, initially valued at over £500,000 over a one year period. Successful reduction of offences to those committed over one evening with a value under £3,000.<

R v LP & Another  Guildford Crown Court
Conspiracy to handle stolen goods.  Represented a vulnerable female defendant charged with conspiracy to handle stolen goods, the charges arising from a separate conspiracy to burgle where numerous high value cars had been stolen from driveways across south London, her co-defendant boyfriend using her flat as a base for his activities.  An acceptable guilty plea to a single lesser offence resulted in a Community Order.

R v SA  Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court
Possession of false identity documents.  The defendant in this matter, an elderly man of good character, had previously been represented by another firm who had advised him to plead guilty to an Identity Documents Act offence.  The case was transferred to this firm prior to sentencing where, upon careful consideration of the legislation, that advice was found to be flawed and an application to re-open plea was made and granted.   The CPS thereafter offered no evidence against the defendant who came very close to being sentenced for an offence which did not exist in law, the previous solicitor, the police, CPS and District Judge all overlooking a key fact.<

 R v IW  Southwark Crown Court
Burglary.  Represented a prolific commercial burglar and successfully persuaded the court to impose a non-custodial sentence despite 26 previous similar offences.

R v JB  Southwark Crown Court
Perjury & perverting the course of justice.  Represented a young woman accused of perjury and perverting the course of justice by making multiple false allegations of rape and sexual assault in a case attracting widespread national (and international) attention.<

 R v AH  Maidstone Crown Court
Absconding from lawful custody.  Represented a defendant serving a life sentence for murder who was accused of absconding from lawful custody by walking out of an open prison.  Minimal custodial sentence passed, despite similar previous offences, due to mitigating circumstances.

R v RW  Isleworth Crown Court
Perverting the course of justice.  No evidence offered by the Crown on multiple charges of perverting the course of justice and making threats to kill largely arising from recorded calls made from prison.

R v AM  Southwark Crown Court
Perverting the course of justice.  Secured a rare Suspended Sentence Order for a client who admitted perverting the course of justice by providing another driver’s details when stopped by the police for a minor driving offence, that other person having faced trial as a result.