Abigail Bright

Abigail has appeared in a number of High Court appeals, and advises at each stage of full hearings in which she is instructed.

Abigail has appeared in the Court of Appeal in cases of significant public importance. She is a speaker at the Criminal Appeal Seminar Series. Abigail formed the third panel member alongside James Wood, Q.C. and Professor Michael Kopelman (consultant neuropsychiatrist at the Maudsley) at a seminar on psychiatric aspects of criminal evidence and procedure in cases of homicide.

Recent successes include the following:

• November 2012: instructed junior to Edward Fitzgerald, Q.C. in Danilo Restivo (also known as ''the hair fetishist killer''), re: appeal against a whole life order, a case in which Edward Fitzgerald and Abigail were instructed as specialist appellate counsel. A special constitution of the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) (Judge, LCJ, Hallett, Hughes, Leveson, Rafferty, LJJ.) gave judgment in five conjoined appeals which specifically considered the minimum terms in respect of whole life orders. Restivo was sentenced to life imprisonment following his conviction after a lost trial for murder, with a whole life specified minimum term. That sentence was set aside and substituted with a minimum term fixed at forty years. In sentencing Restivo for the murder of B, the trial judge had accepted abundant evidence that Restivo “had killed before". Notwithstanding that, the Court of Appeal found that the trial judge had not been entitled to sentence Restivo for such an earlier murder.
• January 2013: successfully represented Mildred Yesenia Terraza De Leon, a so-called ‘drug mule’ in her appeal against sentence. Again, Abigail was instructed as specialist appellate counsel, having not conducted the sentence. Ms De Leon was sentenced at the Isleworth Crown Court in May 2012, under the new drug offences guidelines (effective as of 3rd April 2012), to five years' immediate imprisonment for importation of approx. 3 kg of cocaine, jointly charged with another. Sentence was reduced to a four-year custodial term, permission for leave to apply out of time having been granted, and fresh evidence having been permitted before the Court. On appeal, the Court acceded to counsel's submissions that the role of the Appellant had not been a 'leading or significant' one, per the finding of the sentencing judge, but had been a lesser, and wholly directed one.

Abigail accepts both criminal publicly funded and CFA instructions. She is currently instructed as junior in a judicial review which involves three claimants. The two defendants are the Chief Constable of the British Transport Police and the Southwark Crown Court. The judicial review concerns hearings in connection with applications for warrants at the Southwark Crown Court. The claim challenges the lawfulness of the issue and execution of three separate search warrants. It raises serious issues as to how investigations are conducted into solicitors, and where a solicitor’s relationship with his client is interfered with by the same investigating team as has charge of the main criminal investigation.

Abigail has a particular interest in the proportionate policing and prosecution of public disorder, involving legal argument on Articles 10 and 11, ECHR. She has acted for political activists and campaigners on issues such as:

• The right to peaceful protest to uphold the right of access to urban cycling, re: the Critical Mass cycling event on 25^th May 2012 (successfully represented KP; the trial judge, HHJ Grieve, Q.C., at the Southwark Crown Court, acceded to defence submissions that there was no case for KP to answer, following three days of prosecution evidence. The indictment featured a count of affray.);
• Environmental and animal rights (currently instructed for trial in the Bexhill Bypass Road protest in Hastings);
• Peace/disarmament (represented fourteen of the West Burton Power Station protestors in Nottingham);
• Social justice (involved in the preparation for trial of the defence of Trenton Oldfield [of Oxford boat race fame], and is instructed to represent a protester at the Witney protest in December 2012 against withdrawal of public funding for disability benefits);
• The right for nakedness not to be treated as a contempt or public order offence (currently instructed to represent Stephen Gough, “the Naked Rambler”)

Abigail accepts private and publically funded instructions in cases before regulatory and administrative tribunals.

• GMC v SC (GMC Manchester, full day hearing): Pro bono led junior defence counsel. The lay panel at the GMC acceded to submissions made by the defence that a series of undertakings was suitable to facilitate entry again into clinical practice, as a forensic medical examiner (FME). The lay panel at the GMC declined to follow the written and oral representations of prosecuting GMC Counsel that there were no suitable conditions or undertakings whatsoever to allay concerns attaching to practice by SC in a clinical field
• Elmbridge Borough Council v GV: Defended in a four-day trial of planning and regulatory provisions;
• Mid Staffordshire General Hospital Trust Public Inquiry: Instructed by the Department of Health as noting counsel at the inquiry, chaired by Robert Francis Q.C., reported in January 2013.

• Confiscation: In RT, pursued a legal argument re: section 19(1) of POCA on the issue of whether the term "prosecuting authority" includes the police.  This was for the purposes of ascertaining what knowledge of the available amount could be attributed to the CPS, in default of what was known to the police at the time that a compensation order was made – but when no confiscation application (and so order) was made. HHJ Griffiths observed that the legal argument gave rise to a “novel point” which had not previously been pursued.
• Asset restraint: defended in an application to vary an asset restraint order before HHJ Peter Thornton Q.C. at the Central Criminal Court.

February 2013: Abigail represented VG at trial, who was acquitted of having caused actual bodily harm (ABH) at the Inner London Crown Court. The gist of the allegation was that the defendant had launched an unprovoked and sustained attack on the complainant, allegedly in connection with an outstanding sum of money owed by the complainant to the defendant.

The jury took four minutes to indicate their verdict of 'Not guilty'.