Holly Rust

Practice areas

General crime
Regulatory crime

Profile

Holly joined Devon Chambers as a pupil in October 2018, and has since developed a busy criminal practice, both defending and prosecuting a wide range of offences in the Crown Court. A natural jury advocate, her performance in court has been described as ‘outstanding’.

Her practice covers the breadth of criminal law, including: serious violence, sexual offences, fraud, multi-handed drugs conspiracies, money-laundering conspiracies, burglary, robbery, and more. Particularly skilled with complex points of law, she has appeared in the Court of Appeal and handled many abuse of process arguments and applications to exclude evidence, as well as POCA proceedings. Holly also accepts instructions as a led junior, both prosecuting and defending a variety of cases.

Always putting her clients first, Holly has a background of working with vulnerable individuals with mental health difficulties and other disabilities. This means she is well-placed to support such individuals throughout the difficulties of criminal proceedings, and also to identify and often pursue related defences when appropriate. Holly regularly handles cases involving fitness to plead and insanity defences.

Holly is a member of the Junior Junior Scheme for the Government Legal Department, and is regulated by the Bar Standards Board.

As well as acting as the Devon and Cornwall representative for the Western Circuit, Holly has her own personal project of the Legal Pets Charity Calendar for Billable Hour, raising money for Save the Children: www.lawpawcalendar.com .

Recent Cases

R v B (2026). Prosecuted a rape trial involving 3 vulnerable complainants, as well as vulnerable witnesses. As the three cases had been investigated separately this involved liaising with multiple officers and advising on how best to bring the evidence together.
R v M (2025). Defended an extremely vulnerable individual who had allegedly assaulted a paramedic. Involved advising on fitness to plead and insanity.
R v G and others (2024). Defence junior in a multi-handed money-laundering case. Attended conferences and assisted with case preparation, as well as strategies throughout the trial.
R v S and others (2023). Prosecution junior in a multi-handed drugs case. Involved assisting with case preparation and at court, with the case involving large amounts of phone, cell-site, and forensic evidence, as well as issues of modern slavery. Instructed to handle POCA proceedings independently at the conclusion of the case.
R v S (2023). Defending a case in which identity was denied; involved s.78 applications to exclude evidence and an application of no case to answer.
R v H (2023). Appealed a sentence at the Court of Appeal, where the case involved breaching a SHPO by setting up social media accounts. Argued that the duration should not be an aggravating feature when accounts have been set up for a long time, but gone unused.
R v M (2022). Defended a case of breaching a restraining order, with a defence of insanity.
R v B (2021). Defending a case where documents from family proceedings revealed that the complainant’s account differed in those proceedings. This included handling the application in the family court to enable those documents to be used in the defence of the criminal case.
R v D (2020). Defending a case in which the issue was that the officers were acting unlawfully as they were motivated by racism.