Crime Solicitors

Senior barrister Nigel Lithman QC has launched a scathing attack on a London conference which promoted Britain’s legal sector overseas, in the face of recent cuts to Legal Aid by the Ministry of Justice.

Mr Lithman is Chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, which recently held its first ever strike in protest at Legal Aid cuts.

Cuts in Legal Aid affect criminal cases – all those charged with a criminal offence are automatically entitled to Legal Aid to defend their case and barristers who specialise in criminal defence work are paid by the Legal Aid Agency.

The Legal Aid Agency sets acceptable rates for legal costs for cases being publicly funded by Legal Aid.

Cuts to the Legal Aid budget may mean that those facing criminal charges are defended by less experienced barristers in order to save money on Legal Aid fees.

Barristers fear that some people in receipt of Legal Aid might not be adequately represented in their case by a suitably experienced barrister because of Ministry of Justice cuts to Legal Aid budgets.

Mr Lithman has sparked controversy in his criticism of the conference promoting Britain’s legal services by comparing it with “inviting the Red Cross into Theresienstadt to see what great camps the Germans ran”.

Theresienstadt was a camp used by the Nazi regime to showcase how well they treated prisoners of war, which acted as a decoy to the atrocities perpetrated in concentration camps.

Mr Lithman’s comment has been labelled as “deeply offensive” by Conservative MP Michael Ellis, the Mail online reports.

However, Mr Lithman – who is Jewish – says that the cuts to Legal Aid would destroy the criminal bar, but denied that he was comparing the effect of this to the Holocaust.

“There is, of course, no comparison with the evils of Theresienstadt,” said Mr Lithman. “But what happened there is that the Red Cross were invited to look at a ‘model’ camp in which they were fooled that all was well,” he said.

“The point I make is you always have a duty to look beneath the surface to discover for yourself what, in reality, is going on.”

Mr Lithman was speaking at the conference which was set up to promote Britain’s legal services overseas when he made his comments – and said it was “ridiculous” to boast of the UK’s “unrivalled legal expertise”, when criminal cases were being affected by cuts to the Legal Aid budget.

The impact of Legal Aid cuts also affect other areas of law – and recently family lawyers have raised concern that in some divorce cases in which domestic violence is a factor, an abused partner may have to meet their abuser across a negotiating table, as the emphasis in family cases shifts away from legal action and the courts to more mediation between the estranged parties.

Another casualty of the Ministry of Justice’s cuts to Legal Aid includes private leasehold homeowners whose freeholders fail to carry out repairs. Under the new Legal Aid guidelines, private owner-occupiers will no longer be eligible for Legal Aid to take freeholders in disrepair to court; meaning that unless homeonwers can afford to pay legal fees, more leasehold private homes may fall into disrepair – or leasehold homeowners may even have to pay for and carry out repairs to their homes themselves if the freeholder fails to do so.

Duncan Lewis Criminal Solicitors

Duncan Lewis is a leading firm of criminal solicitors and can advise at any stage of a charge.

Duncan Lewis is also one of the UK’s leading providers of Legal Aid services.

For expert legal advice on criminal charges – and advice on Legal Aid funding – contact Duncan Lewis Solicitors on 020 7923 4020.