Quincy Whitaker

Overview

Quincy Whitaker has a practice encompassing all aspects of international and domestic criminal justice law.

She has an extensive practice in civil actions for police misconduct, public law policing issues and prisoners' rights. She has successfully acted for Claimants against police forces across the country on a range of cases encompassing false imprisonment, malicious prosecution, assault, negligence and witness protection issues and in judicial review proceedings challenging public order policing decisions (including the successful challenge to the policing of the visit of the former President in China, conceded by the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police to be unlawful as it violated the protesters rights of freedom of expression). She has acted on behalf of Discretionary and Mandatory Life sentence prisoners at parole hearings and in numerous High Court cases concerning parole hearings, security categorisation, revocation of licences, denial of guilt, CCRC references back to the CA, denial of medical treatment and tariff reductions for life sentenced prisoners.

She has appeared in a wide range of criminal cases from fraud, drugs importation, confiscation proceedings, to murder, public order and public protest and has a particular interest in cases involving human rights issues. She has successfully acted in many cases involving political protest, including the Greenpeace activists who were acquitted of causing criminal damage to Kingsnorth power station and anti-war protesters acquitted of causing criminal damage to B52 bombers at RAF Fairford.

She has an in-depth knowledge and working experience of Caribbean constitutional law with a particular emphasis on the death penalty and has appeared in many of the leading cases in this area at the Privy Council (Thomas & Hilaire v AG Trinidad, Neville Lewis v AG Jamaica) as well as having worked in the Caribbean on behalf of death row inmates. She regularly appears in the High Court in challenges to the compatibility of aspects of the criminal law with Human Rights law. She has a particular interest in transitional justice in post-conflict societies and has worked as a criminal justice consultant in Kosovo as well as training judges and lawyers in Sierra Leone, Botswana, Cameroon and Turkey. She has represented defendants before the Special Court for Sierra Leone and the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, where she was also briefed to act as an amicus to the court. She has a first class masters in International Human Rights Law from the LSE and for a number of years taught LLM students on Human Rights and the Developing World at the LSE

Recent cases

• R v Hall & others - 6 Greenpeace defendants acquitted of criminal damage to chimney of KIngsnorth power station, Maidstone Crown Court
  
  
• R v Olditch & Pritchard - anti-Iraq war protesters acquitted of criminal damage to B52 bombers at RAF Fairford, Bristol Crown Court
  
  
• R v Ayliffe & others - 13 Greenpeace defendants acquitted of public nuisance to tanker containing GM animal feed, Cardiff Crown Court
  
  
• R v Pitchfork [2009] EWCA Crim 1231 - CA - tariff reduction for exceptional progress
  
  
• R (Conrad) v SSJ [2007] EWHC 1796 (Admin) - delay in parole hearing violation of article 5
  
  
• R (Hawkes) v DPP [2005] EWCA 3046 (admin) - must be apprehension of violence for arrest for breach of the peace to be lawful: officer not acting in execution of duty when assaulted during course of unlawful arrest.

Career cases

• Neville Lewis v AG Jamaica [2001] 2 A.C. 50 Privy Council - prerogative of mercy subject to natural justice - allegations of unconstitutional mistreatment must be determined with oral evidence; all proceedings to be concluded within 5 years or else execution violates constitutional prohibition on inhuman and degrading treatment
  
  
• Thomas & Hilaire v AG Trinidad & Tobago [2000] 2 A.C. 1 Privy Council - unconstitutional to execute prisoner while he has an outstanding application to an International Human Rights body
  
  
• Farrington v Queen (Bahamas) [1997] A.C. 395 Privy Council - permissible delay in execution reduced by 18 months in Bahamas as citizens have no right of individual petition to International Human Rights bodies.

Publications

She is co-author with Keir Starmer QC and Michelle Strange of 'Blackstones Criminal Practice, Police Powers and Human Rights'

Seminars/Lectures

Quincy undertakes a variety of speaking and teaching roles. She has taught Ethics and Human Rights to Senior Police officers at the National Police Training School in Bramshill on a number of occasions. She has trained UK government departments, and lawyers and judges in Turkey, Cameroon, Sierra Leone and Botswana on human rights law. She also regularly speaks at Doughty Street Chambers seminars and Association of Prison Lawyers training seminars.

Memberships

• Criminal Bar Association
• Association of Prison Lawyers

Year of Call

1991

Education

BA (Hons) Jurisprudence, LLM International Human Rights Law (Distinction)

Email Address

q.whitaker@doughtystreet.co.uk

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Specialist Teams

Member :

• Actions Against the police
• Criminal Law
• Human Rights
• International Law Group
• Prisoner's Rights
• Public and Administrative Law