Peter Lownds is listed in the Chambers and Partners Directory 2009 for the third year in row as one of the leading junior barristers in criminal law.
He is a former solicitor. As a solicitor he worked for major City law firm Slaughter and May and gained considerable experience litigating substantial commercial cases, including complex fraud.
Since transferring to the Bar in 1998 he has gained extensive trial experience and developed a practice focusing almost exclusively on fraud, terrorism, homicide, and serious drugs offences. He regularly acts as leading junior or junior counsel in complex and substantial cases. He has particular expertise in those requiring the forensic examination of large amounts of material and the detailed preparation of the defence.
He has very recently completed a trial representing a man accused of carrying out a bombing campaign in opposition to Oxford University's animal experimentation laboratory,( R v Broughton ). The case included the first challenge within this jurisdiction to the reliability of low template DNA evidence. His other cases within the last 6 months include acting for a client in a very substantial terrorism trial concerning allegations of possession of terrorist materials for a terrorist purpose ( R v Khan and others ) and representing a client in a murder case concerning a nightclub stabbing in the City of London which was one of the first cases to involve consideration of issues of witness anonymity under Criminal Evidence (Witness Anonymity) Act 2008.
Later this month he is instructed on a further terrorism case to be heard in the House of Lords where the Court will address the ingredients of the offences under s57 and s58 of the Terrorism Act 2000.
His other recent terrorism work includes representing a client who was accused of inciting murder over the internet by running the media wing of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AG Ref No. 85, 86 and 87 of 2007, R v Tsouli and others ). In this case the volume of computer generated material was so extensive that it was cited in Parliament by the Government as the justification for the failed attempt to extend the period of pre-charge detention to 90 days.
In the last 12 months he has also led on a large-scale cannabis cultivation conspiracy and on a high value car related fraud. He is currently instructed as leading junior to represent a man accused of being part of gang responsible for robberies at a number of Argos stores and again as leader on another multi-defendant car related fraud case.
Other past cases within the last two years include the double murder of John and Joan Stirland ( "The Trusthorpe Murders" ), the largest motor insurance fraud involving false accident claims, a multi-handed gangland murder, and a £4M drugs importation.
He is regularly instructed on behalf of animal rights and other political protestors and acted for the main defendant in a high profile conspiracy to burgle an animal laboratory (AG Ref No. 54 of 2005, R v Keith Mann).
He has considerable experience of acting for clients in Anti-Social Behaviour Order cases and has provided training for solicitors on the subject. He was counsel in the longest ever ASBO appeal.
He was junior counsel on two independent mental health inquiries into the care and treatment of two men convicted of separate murders in the late 1990s.
He has acted for defendants in Court Martial proceedings.
He undertakes pro-bono work and is instructed on Caribbean Death Row cases. He has acted as junior counsel on a case before the Grand Chamber of the European Court of Human Rights (Tahsin Acar v Turkey (2004) 38 EHRR 12 ).
He has presented training courses in person, on video and over the Internet. He is a member of Liberty, Criminal Bar Association, Legal Action Group, Society of Labour Lawyers and Young Fraud Lawyers Association.
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