Leila Gaskin
e: Leila.Gaskin@CharterChambers.com

Year of Call: 2000
Affiliations: Association of Young Fraud Lawyers, South Eastern Circuit
Specialist Areas: General Crime, Serious Crime, Homicide, Serious Violent Offences, Firearms, Large Drugs Related Offences, Terrorism, Sexual Offences, Serious Fraud & White Collar Crime, Police Disciplinary Tribunals

Practice Profile Cases

Leila Gaskin is a highly regarded and busy criminal practitioner. She has a busy practice both as a junior and led junior in a wide range of cases. In particular she specialises in the following areas of law:

Fraud and Complex Cases

For many years now Leila has been instructed as a junior in a number of high profile, complex and lengthy cases. Her ability, background and experience in cases involving complicated matters of disclosure and vast amounts of material (evidential and financial) has led to her instruction in an advisory capacity both prosecuting and defending such cases. She is instructed by a number of well known firms of solicitors and by a number of prosecution authorities in this regard such as Casework Directorate and the Fraud Prosecution Service.

Large Scale Drugs Conspiracies

Again, Leila’s experience - having been instructed frequently in cases of this nature - has led her to have a busy and demanding practice in this area. She has particular experience in multi-handed prosecutions that bring with them challenging issues of evidence, disclosure and manageability. She is therefore familiar with all the recent protocols in this regard.

Police Discipline

Over the last few years Leila has been instructed more and more frequently in cases of police discipline. These often complicated and sensitive cases require careful handling and of course detailed knowledge of the recent change in the regulations and the independent reviews that have resulted in these changes.

Other Significant Areas of Law

Leila both defends and prosecutes in the Crown Court. She is instructed regularly by a number of defence solicitors to represent defendants charged with a broad spectrum of offences. She seems to have developed a niche in representing defendants in cases where there are issues concerning mental health law and cases where there are young witnesses involved. As a result, she is frequently asked to advise on cases of this kind.

Equally, she is a Grade 3 Prosecutor and is instructed frequently by the Crown Prosecution Service in London in that capacity to prosecute often long and complicated cases such as frauds and multi-handed cases.

 

R v. Majeed (2009)
Tax evasion in the sum of four million pounds over a period of years: instructed as a junior on behalf of the prosecution to deal with significant complicated matters of disclosure and evidence.

R v. E and Others (2008)
Instructed as a junior on behalf of the defence in a long running and evidentially voluminous case concerning a conspiracy to supply Class A drugs: this was a multi-million pound international drug trafficking conspiracy involving complex legal arguments such as the admissibility of foreign and domestic intercept evidence and complicated bad character issues concerning foreign convictions recorded against co-defendants .

R v. Jones and Others (2006)
A prosecution brought by the Directorate of Professional Standards (MPS Anti-corruption Command) that concerned the prosecution of a serving police officer who had been supplying intelligence to the criminal fraternity in and around London. This again, was a long running case that involved difficult areas of disclosure due to the sensitivity of the documents and information concerned .