Harry Potter

Barrister

Leading Junior and junior for the defence in all areas of crime, including courts martial. Has also done an increasing amount of prison law, including advising on judicial reviews, appearing at adjudications, and pro bono work making submissions on life tariffs and on removal from Category A Status.

Harry Potter has represented professional footballers on road traffic offences, and other private clients for fare dodging, for obscene publications, and for indecent images.

Articles & Publications

Alexander Paterson: Prison Reformer, Boydell & Brewer (2022) - a biography of the great prison reformer.
A Brief History of the Common Law, Boydell & Brewer (2015) - an accessible and entertaining history tracing the growth of the law from its beginnings in Anglo-Saxon times to the present day.
Hanging in Judgment: Religion and the Death Penalty from the Bloody Code to Abolition, SCM, 1993
Hanging and Heresy, Kent University Press, 1994
Father Diamond of Deptford, (ed) Ditchling Press, 1994
Blood Feud: The Stewarts and Gordons at War in the Age of Mary Queen of Scots, Tempus 2002
Edinburgh Under Siege 1571-1573, Tempus, 2003
Articles on the Criminal Justice Act 1991, Job, Jeremiah, Rudyard Kipling and the First World War, Sir Thomas Browne, and the War Poets.

Lectures

Lectures on Kipling, Rastafarians, the Death Penalty, Criminal Justice, Prisons and The Evil of Anatomy.

Television

Leading contributor to BBC4's Capital Punishment documentary, 2011.
Presenter of BBC4 Series The Strange Case of the Law, a three part history of the English Common Law. The programme was reviewed extensively and very enthusiastically

Associated Work

Legal advisor to the 999 Club in Deptford (a local charity dealing with the homeless, addicts, and deprived children); regularly judges advocacy at the College of Law.
Worked as a chaplain in the Prison service for 8 years, 5 full time, 4 years at Wormwood Scrubs dealing mainly with lifers, writing many reports and attending many lifer review hearings, and 4 years in Aylesbury, the only Cat A Young Offender Institution.

Professional Memberships

Criminal Bar Association
Positions of Responsibility
1984 Ordained priest in the Church of England
1984-7 Fellow, Selwyn College Cambridge
1992-2009 Vice Chair of Trustees of the 999 Club, Deptford
2002-6 Liberal Democrat Councillor in Greenwich
Governor of Christ's Hospital and Eltham Green Specialist Sports College

Education

1978 MA, History and Theology (1st Class, Cambridge)
1979 MPhil, Old Testament and Hebrew (Cambridge)
1992 LLB (Thames Valley)
1993 LPC Very Competent

R v A - Multi-handed case of 9 - 10 street dealers in SE London. Secured only acquittal
R v Z - Represented convicted prisoner charged with drug importation and supply whilst on day release from open prison. Secured acquittal.
R v Clarke - Represented street dealer caught in police test purchase operation.
R v X - Represented convicted drug dealer who continued to import lorry loads of drugs from Europe.
R v Brown - Drug dealer with previous convictions who went on to front a major Class A drugs ring which continued even after initial arrest.
R v A - A graduate of good character carrying out a number of robberies of women motivated by a long-standing shoe fetish.
R v Clark & Others - The murder of a bouncer in Deptford by the owner of two dogs, Colonel and Gaddafi. One of the dogs took part in the assault. After DNA proved it was Gaddafi, the judge ordered his execution.
R v C - The attempted murder by an addict of his partner. He asserted and the medical services initially thought it was attempted suicide.
R v V & Others - A fiddlers on the roof case, in which a large number of the elderly and infirm were persuaded to part with their life savings for minor roof repairs.
R v Osborne - A murder case where the defendant stabbed an intruder who had already inflicted 93 separate injuries on himself in a drug induced frenzy. With the remote possibility of a life sentence for murder hanging over him, the defendant, on a totally artificial basis, pleaded to manslaughter on the grounds of provocation, when in fact he had acted in self-defence. This case was taken up by the press and used as example by the Law Commission in their report on murder.
R v AM - A s.18 wounding in which an addict injected his partner causing necrotising fasciitis, resulting in the amputation of her leg.
R –v- JI & Others - Gang rape by three 13 year olds.
R –v- C - Attempted murder by a business man attempting to push another in front of a train.
R –v- P & Others - Gang rape by three brothers on a 13 year old.
R –v- D & Others - Attempted murder of drug dealers by another gang.
R –v- O - Corruption in public office by a local authority planning officer.
R v H & Others - A sentencing in a matter in which counsel had not previously been instructed. The defendant and his friends had pleaded to s.20, the ‘victim’ being a murderer whom they had apprehended.

Courts Martial

‘instructed to defend a soldier accused of attacking several German civilians during an alcoholic binge. He was acquitted.’

Prison Law

R v Camier - Sentenced to an IPP with a 3 year tariff in 2007, advised at the time that there was no ground of appeal. I was granted leave to appeal three years out of time.
R v W - Following that victory another IPP prisoner with a 9 month tariff has already served 3 years
R v Warrie - Successfully got the prison service to de-categorise a Category A status for a lifer serving a 20 year minimum for killing a policeman
R v C - Advised and drafted submissions for a lifer who was moved from Cat D back to Cat B, and on a fixed term prisoner whose licence was revoked.
R v D - Successfully made submissions on time served leading to the early release of a prisoner.

Parole Board appeals

R v A - Given evidence on behalf of a lifer at his parole board, securing his release.

Proceeds of Crime Act

R v Z - An early case involving Mass Spec evidence.
R v D - A recent case involving Mass Spec evidence.

Public and Administrative Law

R v Armstrong - Judicial Review of custody time limits where the High Court held that a judge had neither understood the law nor the practice of the court.

R v M - A fraud committed on the estate of M’s gay lover in the days after his suicide.
R v B & Others - A classic carousel fraud.
R v Mc & Others - An alcohol diversion fraud allegedly planned by a solicitor while in prison for fraud, and executed by a probation officer and two former Metropolitan Police officers.