Tony qualified as a solicitor in October 2000. After 8 years as a general litigator in a High Street practice in Isleworth as a partner in 1998 he dedicated himself to a life of crime (being both a police station and a magistrate’s court duty solicitor (since 2000) and a Crown Court advocate (since 2006).

He has been both a leading junior and a led junior and has represented defendants in a wide range of cases including serious sexual offences (recent and historic) and murder. Tony has acted for clients from the levels of police station up to the Court of Appeal.

Tony practises throughout the country and is frequently instructed by other firms to represent their clients in the Crown Court. He is often asked to accept s36 instructions in the Crown Court (where unrepresented defendants are not allowed to question certain types of witnesses).

He has a particular insight into defendants who are vulnerable and is noted for his empathetic treatment of those he represents. In particular, he has successfully gained (rare) McNaghten insanity special verdicts on 2 occasions and has been approved by the judiciary in relation to representation of defendants who have been deemed not fit to plead. He has been noted by the judiciary for the qualities he has brought to cross-examination of vulnerable witnesses (even before compulsory requirements were brought in for training).

Tony is frequently sought out by professional colleagues for advice and is respected by the judiciary to the extent that he has, unusually for a solicitor, delivered three valedictory speeches for retiring Crown Court judges (including one before the then Lord Chief Justice who was effectively Tony’s “warm-up act”). Resident judges at Isleworth and Harrow Crown Courts have often asked him to act as a channel of communication with practitioners.

Tony has also worked as a part-time lecturer on LLB and LPC courses (family and business law).

Tony’s interests include: (a catholic range of) reading, history, bird-watching (not a saddo “twitcher” but a “birder”),  writing, cooking, singing with his Church choir, music (classical and heavy rock) watching team sports – cricket, rugby and hurling in particular,  the theatre, old British radio shows, B&W films and TV (either BBC4 Extra or Talking Pictures TV), gardening and above all William Shakespeare (particularly at the Globe Theatre) – Health Warning: anyone who suggests to Tony that the Bard did not write the plays, the sonnets or the poems may need a restraining order to protect themselves from him (see Peter Ackroyd’s biography of the great man in justification).

Tony’s dislikes are: lawyers who don’t know the law, don’t know their case, are just going through the motions, are motivated simply by how much money they can screw out of their client or the legal aid system.