Lara Maroof

e: Lara.Maroof@charterchambers.com

Year of Call: 2001 LLB (Hons)

Affiliations: Lawyers for Liberty, Liberty, Prisoner's Advisory Service, CAMPACC

Specialist Areas: General Crime, Serious Crime, Sexual Offences, Serious Fraud & White Collar Crime, Commercial Crime, Money Laundering, Local Government Crime & Enforcement, Parole Hearings

Lara Maroof is a criminal defence practitioner with experience of a broad spectrum of criminal offences as sole junior counsel and led junior counsel. Major areas of expertise include:

Robberies
Sexual Offences
Drug Trafficking
Fraud
Money Laundering
Confiscation Proceedings

Lara has a particular interest in cases involving young offenders and has significant experience in representing young people in the Crown Court. She also has significant experience and expertise regarding:

Offences under the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000
Immigration-related crime due to background in immigration and asylum work
Courts Martial work, representing soldiers both in the UK and abroad

Another area within which Lara is considered an expert is that of prisoners’ rights. She has notable experience in all areas of prison law, including:

Parole board hearings for lifers and those sentenced to IPP’s
Recall hearings
Prison disciplinary adjudications
Written appeals against punishments of adjudicators
Judicial review of all decisions relating to prisoners rights

CRIME
DPP v Randy Toney [2005] (EWHC 1865 [Admin] Appeal by way of case stated from Wood Green Crown Court addressing the issue as whether a Defendant should be allowed to vacate his guilty plea where his admissions were so different to the Prosecution case and no basis of plea had been put forward)

R v Powell & others – Southwark Crown Court (A 3 month trial involving 5 Defendants. Instructed as led junior counsel. Client was one of 5 defendants all charged with laundering the proceeds of a large-scale fraud. The first defendant was charged with fraudulent trading. The client and 3 other defendants were Directors of a company which claimed to invest money for members of the public in spread trading. In this way £3.2m was obtained from members of the public but never invested. He was acquitted in relation to all money laundering offences. He is awaiting a re-trial in relation to an offence under s.21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act)

R v Shea – Court of Appeal (Appeal against sentence of an extended sentence for public protection under the CJA 2003. The appellant was a persistent young offender who had been convicted after trial of a robbery on public transport. The issue was whether the finding of a significant risk of serious harm was justified. The appeal was allowed and a determinate sentence imposed)

R v O’Neill Davis & others – Bristol Crown Court (Led junior counsel. Client was one of 9 defendants charged with a large-scale conspiracy to supply crack cocaine. The prosecution resulted from 3 separate police operations and concerned the continual supply of Class A drugs from London to Bristol between 1st March 2002 and 31st July 2003. The client was alleged to have been one of those involved in physically delivering drugs to Bristol)

Clingham v Kensington & Chelsea London Borough Council [2002] (UK HL 39 [2002] 3 WLR 1313 : [2002] 4 All ER 593 : [2003] 1 Cr App R 27 – Appeal to the House of Lords. Pupil to junior counsel, Alan Fraser, at the time of the appeal so conducted an enormous amount of research and preparation work, as well as attending the hearing at the House of Lords. The appeal dealt with whether ASBO proceedings were criminal or civil and the application of Article 6 to such proceedings)

IMMIGRATION/ASYLUM
LM (Acholi – LRA – internal relocation – Uganda CG [2004] UKIAT 00107 – Country guidance case dealing with the availability of internal relocation within Uganda for displaced members of the Acholi tribe)

FO (Albanians - Article 3 – Serbia and Montenegro [2003] UKIAT 00069 – Reported determination of the Tribunal dealing with the application of Article 3 of the Human Rights Act to Kosovan Albanians suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder)
 

ILEX Journal: “The Wrong Approach to Real Problems”-December 2003
Re the significant changes introduced by the Criminal Justice Act 2003

Counsel Magazine August 2009

The Limits of Science  - challenging some preconceptions about a complex subject.

[Counsel Magazine does not publisharticles on line, but a copy is available via e-mail from articles@charterchambers.com ]