Legal 500 2023Leading Junior
Legal 500 2022 Leading Juniors‘Judith is exceptionally thorough and drills down into the details. She is always calm and measured. She understands the needs of local authority clients, and meets those needs in a clear and accessible manner. A great communicator.’
Client‘Judith is approachable, pragmatic, easy to work with, providing excellent written work’
Judith is a very experienced regulatory prosecutor and a Level 3 prosecutor for the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
She was employed by the Environment Agency for over 17 years, and before that by Devon County Council and Torbay Council. She was seconded to CPS in house as a trial advocate. Since she joined Chambers in 2018, Judith has prosecuted and defended regularly in the Crown Courts across the South West.
Alongside, Judith has developed a significant regulatory practice; she prosecutes and defends regulatory crime and in view of her experience, has been instructed by various Regulators to write in-house policies and to write and deliver training.
Judith’s regulatory practice includes planning advice and prosecutions, Trading Standards, food hygiene, animal licencing and welfare, fisheries, waste, illegal tree felling, RSPCA, nuisance, health and safety, housing and education. She has extensive experience of regulatory cases both in the Crown Court and before either a lay bench or a District Judge in the Magistrates court.
Judith is exceptionally well placed to assist in-house regulatory prosecutors as she has considerable experience and understanding of the dynamics of working with an in-house legal team. She believes in the importance of teamwork, and of achieving consensus that includes lawyers, case officers, team leaders and managers in the decision-making process. When in-house, Judith’s experience included everything from the initial case review and advice, drafting summons and case summary, preparation of all papers, selection of bundles, disclosure and then finally advocacy. She prosecuted a number of high profile regulatory cases of significant local or national companies, either as led junior or junior alone.
Ancillary to prosecutions, Judith has advised upon and obtained Criminal Behaviour Orders, substantial POCA orders and disqualification of company directors. She has advised on, prepared and obtained environmental remediation agreements and orders. In appropriate cases, she has found prosecution can be used to achieve reform and is not merely an end in itself.
Judith has more than 20 years’ experience of writing and delivering training material for regulatory officers and lawyers. In 2022 she delivered a series of bespoke training sessions for an in-house regulatory team.
Around the time of the pandemic, she did a considerable amount of work for the Serious Fraud Office as specialist counsel advising on legal professional privilege.
Judith is able to accept instructions from Public Access clients and is regulated by the Bar Standards Board
Judith has a degree is in archaeology; in 2022 she walked Hadrian’s Wall. She is a Fence Judge for British Eventing and member of Devon Wildlife Trust and Devon Archaeology Society.