Latest news

  • The Criminal Appeals section of the website has been updated with a new section on appellate resources including a searchable archive of the Criminal Appeals Bulletin and a list of useful links for those involved in advising or preparing criminal appeal.
  • March 2025 Criminal Appeals Bulletin out now - available here. 

Our expertise

Doughty Street is renowned for housing many of the leading specialist criminal appeal barristers working on cases both in the England and Wales jurisdiction and internationally.

Our Criminal Appeals Unit is headed by Farrhat Arshad.

Our barristers have appeared in some of the most important miscarriage of justice cases over the last 30 years including the Birmingham six, Myra Hindley, Ahluwhalia, Guildford four, Rowe (in Davies, Johnson and Rowe), the “Karl Bridgewater” murder, the Cardiff three, Venables and Thompson, Sarah Thornton, Michael Stone, Derek Bentley, Harry Mackenney and Bruce Childs, post-Jogee joint enterprise appeals, including Crilly, the “Horizon” Post Office appeals, Robert and Lee Firkins, many of the challenges to sentences of Imprisonment for Public Protection, as well as in challenges to capital murder and other convictions and sentences to the Privy Council.

We recognise that a wrongful conviction or sentence at any level can have a devastating impact on appellants and their families. We are instructed as fresh counsel and advise and appear at all appellate levels from appeals against Magistrates’ courts decisions to the Crown Court, to appearing in the Court of Appeal, Supreme Court, and European Court of Human Rights, as well as appellate courts across the Caribbean and in the Privy Council. We also have extensive experience in drafting submissions to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, and several members have additional expertise in judicial review and case stated appeals. 

Members of Chambers write on appellate topics including the appeals sections of Blackstones Criminal Practice and Halsbury’s Laws.

The Criminal Appeals Bulletin

Members of the Appeal Team contribute to the bi-monthly Criminal Appeals Bulletin which contains case summaries and comments on recent decisions from appellate courts in England and Wales, Northern Ireland and the Caribbean. The archive of previous editions of the Bulletin can be found below.

April 2024 Criminal Appeals Bulletin out now - available here.

If you would like to subscribe to future editions of the bulletin, please click here. 

Podcasts

Zinc media have produced a series on IPP prisoners: Trapped - The IPP Prisoner Scandal. 

Farrhat Arshad KC appears in episode 7 (9 October 2023), “Appealing the Sentence: IH’s Story.” 

You can listen to the podcast series here.

Instructing our Barristers

We accept instructions from solicitors in the usual way. Please contact the criminal clerks.

Direct access

We are also regularly instructed directly by members of the public who may want a second opinion. This can be a cost-effective way to secure specialist advice, and more information can be found by clicking here. Please note members of the public wishing to take advice under the legal aid scheme must instruct a solicitor; we will be pleased to advice on suitably experienced choices.

For all our clients we can offer a “triage” service, where for an initial fixed fee preliminary advice can be obtained to determine whether or not there are any merits in pursuing an appeal. Please call our criminal clerks to discuss your individual case.