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Criminal Defence Solicitors

At Nelson Guest and Partners, we have more than 25 years' experience defending a range of matters, including serious criminal offences, in London, the Home Counties and beyond. Our success rate is excellent and our fees are transparent and affordable.

Our friendly, professional team will guide you through the complicated legal process explaining, in plain language, your choices and best courses of action at every step of the way.

We can offer free 10-minute consultations on the phone or at choice locations, including central London.

Get in touch with our expert criminal defence solicitors

Contact us as early as possible on 020 8309 5010 or by emailing newenquiries@nelson-guest.co.uk – you can also use our contact form.

How our criminal defence solicitors can help you

We can provide expert advice at every stage of the criminal justice system, including at the police station, at Magistrates’ Court, and at Crown Court.

We deploy fierce defence strategies to give you the best possible chance of achieving a positive outcome. With our support, our clients are often able to avoid criminal charges altogether or obtain a not guilty verdict at trial.

Our criminal law solicitors’ expertise includes:

Homicide

Homicide offences cover everything from accidental death and manslaughter to murder. Causing the death of someone else is one of the most serious offences a person can be accused of, even if the death was an accident.

We take these matters extremely seriously and will tirelessly defend your legal rights and rigorously examine and challenge the evidence against you. When facing a homicide allegation, the quality of your legal advice is vital, so get in touch as soon as possible.

Fraud

Our London criminal defence solicitors have many years of experience handling fraud cases, from credit card fraud to serious criminal conspiracies, white collar crime, and multi-million pound ‘boiler room’ frauds.

We particularly specialise in complex and high value fraud cases, often involving thousands of pages of evidence. Our team take a proactive approach, taking time to obtain and ruthlessly analyse all the evidence and helping our clients develop a robust defence strategy.

Sexual offences

Facing an allegation of sexual misconduct can be extremely stressful. These types of offences, which range from harassment and ‘revenge porn’ to serious sexual assault and rape, carry a serious stigma that can follow a person for many years.

Our criminal defence lawyers have years of experience successfully defending against allegations of sexual offences, including accusations of recent and historic sexual offences. We know exactly how to approach these cases to cast doubt upon the evidence against our clients.

Conspiracy

Conspiracies arise from the concept of an agreement to pursue a course of criminal conduct. Common examples of conspiracies include agreements between co-defendants to steal property, supply drugs or murder. These offences are often very complex and often have numerous evidential considerations such as cell site evidence and data downloads.

Owing to the complexity these cases often require experts to ascertain the continuity of evidence and address whether the evidence has been properly handled.

We have handled a variety of high-profile conspiracies including (but not limited) conspiracies to murder, steal and supply drugs.

Drug Offences

They require a particular degree of expertise given that often the evidence will turn on admissibility (whether or not it can actually be presented as evidence). This in itself can be complex and there are also a number of statutory considerations given that the law imposes minimum terms for third strike drug trafficking offences, which under statutory definition include supply.

We have experience in representing clients in extremely complex matters, which often involve multi-handed conspiracies to supply drugs, and also matters which concern young, vulnerable defendants where a defence under the Modern Slavery Act needs to be explored. With a dynamic and devoted team, Nelson Guest and Partners spares no effort in making sure our clients are properly represented and their aims and objectives are achieved.

Robbery & Armed Robbery

S8 Theft Act 1968 presents the option of a life sentence for Robbery although this is extremely rare in practice. Robberies can range from simple examples of members of the public being forced to hand over property to cash in transit robberies entailing substantial degrees of planning and agreement.

We handle countless robberies including high profile ones involving conspiracies, armed robberies, robberies including serious violence, young defendants and many more.

Kidnap & False imprisonment

These are both offences at common law and tend to vary in scale from simple examples of refusing to allow someone to leave a certain place to the classic form of kidnap that you tend to see in dramatic films.

Clearly there are varying degrees of severity in these cases and again sentencing can, in the very worst cases, lead to a period of life imprisonment.

We have handled a variety of cases involving kidnap and can assist you with the best approach given that small margins in these cases can often be vital to ensuring that a Defendant receives the right result, whether that entails a guilty plea or indeed an acquittal at trial.

Assault

Assaults sometimes do not result in harm and other times they do. Offences resulting in some form of harm, for instance actual bodily harm (ABH) or grievous bodily harm (GBH) are, essentially, assaults with the result of harm, with grievous bodily harm having two alternatives depending on the alleged Defendant’s state of mind at the relevant time of the offence. These matters are often very complex and quite often the lay person may not realise that self-defence (a full defence) is actually operative in their given scenario.

We can defend you against accusations of all types of assault, including common assault, battery, ABH and GBH. Our criminal defence solicitors will scrutinise all the evidence so we can fiercely challenge the allegations against you. In the alternative we can try and obtain you the best result by making the most of any mitigation that exists.

Domestic violence offences

Being accused of a domestic violence offence has an extremely serious impact on every area of your life. As well as the emotional pain of these offences, it is common for suspects to lose their job, to be told they can no longer live at their home, and even to be prevented from seeing their children. It can also be detrimental to your reputation, future family and career prospects.

Our criminal solicitors know what is at stake. We will approach your case with sensitivity but will be prepared to take all possible steps to help you achieve a positive outcome.

Harassment

These are often very contentious in nature. They often come off the back of “axes to grind” where relationships have broken down. There are various different types of harassment, including harassment with threats of violence or violence, harassment without threats of violence or violence and stalking.

On occasions the Protection from Harassment Act is used as a weapon by alleged victims to further their own ends. Whilst this is not always the case, we see increasing scenarios where false allegations are made against people, or indeed the alleged victim has struggled to cope emotionally following a fallout and lashes out by way of instigating a prosecution. Often what is left behind in these scenarios are the rights of the person accused of the crime and the effect on them. It is far more likely that an allegation considered to be domestic violence related will result in Court proceedings. We seem to see an approach where the Defendant’s account is not really given the credence that it should be, until such time as the facts become clear at a trial where the issue is battled out.

Whether it is a plea in mitigation to try and limit the damage from a guilty plea, or a fully contested trial, we have handled countless numbers of such cases.

Criminal Damage & Arson

Often allegations of criminal damage are met with Defendants taking the view that they must be guilty, simply because property was damaged. This is often not the case, given that criminal damage requires a certain level of intention, plus the absence of any lawful authority. Examples of criminal damage can range from matters of simplicity such as scratching a car to matters concerning serious fires referred to as Arson.

We have a great deal of experience in handling such matters, whether a Defendant is simply suggesting that they are guilty, and actually are in law, or indeed if they have defences that apply.

As in all cases we approach these cases methodically and try to offer you reassurance along the way.

Public order offences

Our London criminal lawyers can advise on all types of public order issue, from fights outside pubs to neighbour disputes to allegations of harassment.

We know that public order offences have a poor public image which is often fed by media reporting on street gangs, football hooligans or other types of public ‘threat’. In reality, any person can find themselves facing a public order offence. We have experience representing clients from all walks of life, from black cab drivers to TV directors to estate agents.

As well as defending against criminal legal action, we are skilled at protecting our client where their good character and reputation is at risk.

Breach of court order

If you have been accused of breaching a court order, our practical criminal Solicitors are here to help. We understand how stressful facing action for breach of a court order can be, especially if the alleged breach was accidental or a misunderstanding. In many cases, even the smallest breach puts you at risk of going back to court and even receiving a prison sentence.

We can provide advice about what steps we can take to reduce any fallout from the alleged breach, such liaising with the Probation Service on your behalf or fiercely defending you in court. Our team will work tirelessly to achieve the best possible result for you.

Driving and road traffic offences

The consequences of a driving offence conviction can have wide-ranging effects, from the loss of your licence to a lengthy prison sentence. Of course, these consequences can also have a wider impact on your life, such as on your ability to find a job.

We have specialist experience defending people accused of all types of road traffic and driving offence, including, but not limited to, speeding, using a handheld mobile phone whilst driving, drink driving, drug driving, careless or dangerous driving and causing death by dangerous or careless driving.

Quite often these matters can be quite complex because the legislation is far from simple.

Other offences

We also have experience of dealing with all other forms of criminal defence including dangerous dogs prosecutions, local authority prosecutions and various others. Please feel free to contact us about any queries you may have.

Have you been arrested or invited for voluntary interview under caution?

If you or someone you know has been arrested or invited to the police station for a voluntary interview under caution, it is advisable that you seek legal advice as soon as possible.

You are entitled to free legal advice while at the police station, so there is no downside to getting support. Anything you say or do in police custody could potentially be used to prosecute you for an offence. This includes if you have been invited to the police station for a voluntary interview under caution – the invitation is not as amiable as it may sound and adequate legal advice and representation should be sought.

Our team includes specialist police station representatives who can travel at short notice to advise and represent you while in custody.

Our fierce team of lawyers regularly help people accused of serious criminal offences avoid criminal charges or further investigation by securing decisions of no further action.

Get in touch with our criminal defence lawyers

We can offer consultations at our locations, including the City of London. Contact us as soon as possible for immediate advice and a defence strategy:

Call 020 8309 5010 | Ask us a Question | Email us