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Practice Profile
Siobhan Grey has specialised as a criminal defence advocate for fifteen years in the Crown Court. Her practice has focused on serious crime including terrorism, murder, rape and non-fatal violence. Increasingly, it has included cases with a human rights dimension, in particular defending campaigning organisations against prosecution where Article 10 - freedom of expression - has successfully been invoked. She has also defended the first prosecution of an anti-abortion campaigner on a charge of outraging public decency. Other high profile cases have included defending at the Central Criminal Court one of three men accused of an alleged terrorist plot in a prosecution triggered by a News of the World investigation. One of her particular interests concerns the competing interests between freedom of expression and privacy of the individual.
Siobhan has represented a large number of vulnerable women in the criminal justice system who have been physically, sexually and psychologically abused by a dominant partner. She has successfully defended women charged with committing serious harm or murder of their partner after years of living in a violent and traumatic environment.
Her practice also includes appellate work. One of her earliest cases concerned a discretionary life sentence prisoner who had faced extradition proceedings and spent time in custody abroad; the case highlighted a lacuna within the Criminal Justice Act 1991 in relation to discretionary lifers and remand time. Siobhan has continued to advise and provide representations both to the Criminal Cases Review Commission and in the Court of Appeal. She is also a committee member of the Criminal Appeal Lawyers Association.
Siobhan also has extensive experience in quasi-criminal areas including parole board hearings, in particular oral hearings involving mandatory and discretionary life- sentence prisoners and issues concerning release.
On 4th February 2010, Siobhan Grey staged a seminar on Press Standards in the United Kingdom entitled, “Gagging the Press - Is the Public Bound to Suffer?” at Gray’s Inn Hall.
The event was attended by the senior judiciary including Court of Appeal and High Court Judges, as well as all aspects of the press including broadsheet editors and tabloid journalists, the Press Complaints Commission, Index on Censorship and publicist, Max Clifford.
Siobhan opened the seminar and co-authored an introductory booklet on privacy and libel with Professor Eric Barendt. The seminar was chaired by Lord Justice Moses. The speakers included:
Professor Eric Barendt [Goodwin Professor of Media Law at UCL]
Juliet Herd [International editor of HELLO!]
Sir Ken Macdonald QC [Former DPP]
Max Mosley [Former President of the FIA]
Benedict Pavio [Broadcaster for France 24]
Alan Rusbridger [Editor of The Guardian]
Bob Satchwell [Society of Editors]
Siobhan contributed to the recently published book, “Prisoners Law and Practice”
Published by LAG (Legal Action Group). Edited by Simon Creighton and Hamish Arnott.
The contributing chapter is titled, Criminal Offences Committed in Prison.