Stuart Miller Solicitors overturns unfair trial conviction

The firm’s serious crime and appeal lawyers were able to argue that Mr J fell victim to an unfair court trial.

Mr J was sent to prison after being convicted of plotting to bring his wife into the country illegally.

He had insisted that he knew nothing of the smuggle attempt, which he said was arranged by his uncle and other people unknown to him.

After being convicted, his family urgently contacted appeal lawyers at Stuart Miller Solicitors claiming Mr J had been denied a fair hearing.

Crucially, after reviewing trial transcripts and 70,000 pages of prosecution evidence, it became clear that the client had been denied his right to a fair trial under the Human Rights Act.

The transcripts revealed that the trial judge stopped Mr J’s barrister from fully cross-examining the police officer in charge of the investigation by imposing a time limit

The judge also prevented the defence team from quizzing the officer over claims he had acted in bad faith and unfairly investigated the case.

Most importantly, however, serious concerns emerged over how the judge summed up the case to the jurors before they retired to consider their verdict.

A spokesman for Stuart Miller Solicitors explained: “Trial judges have the role of summing up the evidence in an impartial and unbiased way.

“However, when we reviewed the trial transcripts it appeared that the trial judge had made irreversible errors in relation to the evidence, the burden of proof and the way the case was summarised to the jury.”

Stuart Miller Solicitors’ appeal experts first lodged papers with the Court of Appeal, who granted Mr J leave to appeal his conviction.

The appeal was then argued in full and Mr J’s conviction was successfully overturned.