Bar Mark, Criminal Defence Service and Community Legal Service
Address Griffin Building
Gray's Inn, London
WC1R 5LN
DX 400 Chancery Lane
Email matrix@matrixlaw.co.uk Telephone +44 (0)20 7404 3447 Fax +44 (0)20 7404 3448

Julian Knowles

Called 1994
Julian Knowles
Julian is a leading junior in crime, extradition, public law, and European and international human rights law. He also has wide experience of both trial and appeal work and has been described as ‘demonstrating all-round brilliance’.

Julian’s criminal and regulatory practice includes leading and junior work in relation to:

• Corporate and white collar crime including asset restraint and money laundering
• Murder, terrorism and other serious offences
• Health and safety and medical manslaughter cases
• Disciplinary tribunals

Julian is regularly instructed by large City firms and specialist white collar criminal firms to provide strategic advice to corporate and private clients during the investigatory and pre-charge stages of a case. In 2009 he was appointed to the Serious Fraud Office’s A Panel of Junior Counsel. Julian is frequently instructed to advise in cases that involve particularly difficult or novel legal issues and cases that are factually complex. He has particular expertise in cases involving scientific and technical issues. Current and recent cases include:

• Representing three MPs accused of criminal offences arising out of claims for expenses
• Advising BAE Systems PLC in relation to the SFO's corruption inquiry
• Advising a major investment bank on money laundering issues
• Advising a Formula 1 team on regulatory issues
• Advising a political party concerning political funding
• Advising in two major SFO international corruption investigations
• Advising a newspaper editor in relation to alleged insider dealing
• R v Jama (the murder of WPC Beshenivsky)
• R v Pasquill (prosecution of FCO official under the Official Secrets Act 1989)
• R v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis (the Jean Charles De Menezes shooting)
• R v Corporal Donald Payne (prosecution of British soldier for war crimes)
• R v Siôn Jenkins (deputy headmaster accused of murdering his foster daughter Billie-Jo)
• HSBC Bank PLC v Brown (private prosecution of major political donor)
• R v Al-Megrahi (the Lockerbie case)

Julian also has particular expertise in appellate work including, in particular, CCRC references to the Court of Appeal. He regularly appears in the Court of Appeal, House of Lords and the Privy Council. He undertakes pro bono appeals on behalf of prisoners sentenced to death in the Caribbean and has appeared in most of the leading cases of the last ten years. Recent cases include:

• R (Noye) v CCRC (challenge by Kenneth Noye to CCRC decision)
• R v Smith (House of Lords, jury misconduct)
• R v Siôn Jenkins (the Billie-Jo murder appeal)
• R v Watson (Privy Council, mandatory death penalty)
• R v Lyons (House of Lords, the Guinness appeal)
• Lewis v Attorney-General (prerogative of mercy and fairness)
• R v English (House of Lords, murder/joint enterprise)

Julian is one of the UK’s leading extradition counsel and a substantial proportion of his practice involves advising on international criminal law issues for both governments and individuals. He acted for General Pinochet in the extradition proceedings brought by Spain between 1998 and 2000 and has appeared in a number of other high profile extradition cases including:

• Russia v Nikitin and Skarga (extradition of former CEO of Sovcomflot)
• Algeria v Khelifa (first extradition to Algeria)
• Russia v. Temerko and Russia v. Chernysheva (former executives from the Yukos oil company)
• Russia v Zakaev (former Deputy Prime Minister of Chechnya)
• United States of America v Abdelbary (Al-Queda conspiracy to bomb US Embassies in Africa)
• R v Secretary of State ex parte Ramda (conspiracy to cause explosions on the Paris Metro).

Julian is the author of Blackstone’s Guide to the Extradition Act 2003 (OUP, 2004) and he co-authored the leading extradition textbook, The Law of Extradition and Mutual Assistance (2nd Edn, Oxford, 2007). He is a contributor to a number of other leading works including Montgomery and Ormerod’s Fraud (Oxford, 2008).

As well as constitutional work in the Privy Council, Julian’s public law practice includes challenges to decisions in the prosecutorial and regulatory fields, including those based on human rights grounds. Julian acted for the family of Private Harry Farr, who was shot for cowardice during World War I. Julian advised and drafted the successful grounds of challenge to the Government’s refusal to give Private Farr a pardon. This led directly to the grant of a pardon for all of the 306 soldiers shot for military offences during the Great War.

The Scotsman newspaper described Julian as being among a group of 'the world's most formidable lawyers' and in April 2004 a survey of the legal profession by The Lawyer nominated him as the youngest ‘silk’ in its ‘alternative silks list’. A panel of experts in the Independent on Sunday described Julian as ‘demonstrating all-round brilliance’.

In 2009 Julian was appointed as a Recorder of the Crown Court, and in April 2010 he became Death Penalty Director at the charity Reprieve.
© Matrix Chambers 2009 Terms and Conditions
Log In
Name: Password: