Mental Health Solicitors

We are pleased to welcome our new mental health and criminal defence director Rebecca Dart to our Milton Keynes office where she will be supervising a team of lawyers each dedicated to the most vulnerable in society.

Admitted as a solicitor in 2007, Rebecca joins us from Noble Solicitors where she has been practising both mental health law and criminal defence law since 2005. She specialises in all aspects of the Mental Health Act 1983 (as amended by the 2007 Act) including challenging the lawfulness of detention and the appropriateness of treatment, commissioning independent psychiatric and social circumstances reports, and challenging the decisions of mental health tribunals and primary care trusts by way of judicial review.

Where clients lack capacity, Rebecca is frequently appointed to act in their best interests and has extensive experience in representing clients subject to civil sections, including section 2 and 3, as well as forensic sections of the Mental Health Act. She also regularly appears before the First-tier Mental Health Tribunal, attends Managers’ Hearings, and Section 117 aftercare meetings.

In addition to her extensive mental health expertise, Rebecca is also a criminal law specialist and handles a wide variety of matters, from minor traffic offences to more serious matters such as murder and manslaughter. As a duty solicitor and police station accredited, as well as being a higher rights advocate, Rebecca offers her clients high quality representation throughout their cases.

Through her experience and in-depth knowledge of this area of law, Rebecca will assist in growing and developing our mental health department alongside Dalston-based and Legal 500 recommended lawyer, director Rachel Caswell.

She will also be lending her expertise to the criminal defence department, collaborating with directors Hardeep Dhaliwal, Nicholas De Freitas and Rubin Italia, in order to continue providing the high quality, expert legal advice that the department is recognised for by legal directories The Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners.

The criminal defence department has ranked as a Band 1 practice for its work in Watford, Uxbridge and the surrounding areas and dubbed a recognised practitioner for its work throughout London by the 2020 edition of Chambers and Partners. The Legal 500 also recognises the quality of the team by ranking it as a Tier 4 practice and describing it as a ‘hardworking and committed team.’

We are delighted to have Rebecca join our teams and look forward to her sharing her expertise and experience to help build on the fantastic work being carried out by the mental health and criminal defence departments.