Lucie Stoker

Notable Cases

Operation Greenfield 2 – Lucie acted as a led junior and POCA counsel, Alongside a senior member of our team, Robin Shellard in Operation Greenfield 2. This was a large drugs conspiracy in the local area. Those prosecuted in the trial were found guilty and sentenced to immediate custody.

R v G&G – Led by Robin Shellard in the prosecution of parents charged with causing grievous bodily harm to 6-week-old twin babies. The injuries included broken bones and serious brain injury to one of the twins and the evidence involved multidisciplinary paediatric evidence and disclosure from the family court proceedings. The consideration of the latter was greatly aided by Lucie’s experience in care proceedings.

R v F – Defence of a man charged with multiple counts of sexual assaults of under 13s, possession of indecent images and paedophile manuals in a case which required sensitive but robust cross examination of multiple vulnerable witnesses.

R v SC – Prosecution of a woman who defrauded her elderly relative of a sum approaching half a million pounds in order to fund her lavish lifestyle and drug habit.

R v H – Defended a man charged with sexual assault, successfully relying on the defence of non-insane automatism on the basis that his frontal lobe epilepsy had caused the behaviour in question.

R v R – Defence in a case involving multiple counts of assault, GBH and attempted rape within the context of an allegedly abusive relationship.

R v C&S – Co-defended alongside David Maunder in a case involving county lines drug dealing, assault and kidnapping to enforce a drug debt.

R v L&L – Prosecution of a joint enterprise case involving grievous bodily harm where the roles of the co-defendants were different but both contributed to the resulting injuries in some form.

R v C – Defence of a youth club worker in a case involving multiple allegations of sexual assault.

Lucie has been instructed in cases involving driving offences throughout her career at the bar, both in the magistrate’s and Crown court. She has experience of defending and prosecuting in this area and accepts instructions on a legally aided basis as well as privately funded or insurance backed matters.

A brief selection of relevant cases includes the following:

R v B (Crown Court) – Dangerous Driving case involving the deliberate refusal to stop for the police. The driving included domestic roads and motorways across England and Wales and resulted in multiple police cars and helicopters in pursuit.

R v S (Crown Court – appeal from Magistrates to Crown) – Careless driving – case involved a manoeuvre at a set of traffic lights. The defendant was third in a row of traffic but thought that she was passing stopped vehicles when she passed them and through an amber, turning to red light, causing a collision.

R v H (Magistrates Court) – Defending where the accusation of drink driving was based upon a road side breath test which was then followed up by a urine test that was not correctly administered. The application to exclude the urine test was successful in the court but the prosecution then sought to change the charge to driving whilst unfit and to rely on the roadside breath test as evidence. Further legal arguments to exclude that evidence was also successful and the case was dismissed.

R v A – (Crown Court – Appeal from Magistrates’ Court) – Death by Careless Driving and Failure to Stop – The case involved careful consideration of a case where the defendant had hit an elderly woman at a fairly low speed but due to her age she died from her injuries. The defendant was unwell with mental health issues, and in particular anorexia nervosa and claimed that they did not see the victim as it was dawn and still quite dark. The defendant did however see that she had hit something and accepted that she did not stop due to chronic anxiety setting in. The defendant had pleaded guilty to the Failure to stop charge and was sentenced on that basis in the end, following expert evidence being adduced that dealt with visibility issues. The defendant was sentenced to a short prison sentence.

Re NB – Acted for grandparents from out of the jurisdiction in a High Court case where the child was likely to be relocated to reside with family in Pakistan.

Re T – Represented the Local Authority in response to a parents’ application to discharge the care order previously made in a case where the key feature was chronic neglect. The children  were in a sibling group and had not been placed for a number of months, the parents were arguing that they should be placed with them or in long term foster care with a plan for reunification. Due to this plan having been implemented previously and being unsuccessful, the court agreed that  achieving permanence was essential for these children and the care and placement order remained in place.

Re SW – Represented a grieving Mother with cognitive difficulties whose remaining children had been removed due to concerns over chronic neglect. Successfully argued that the children, who were a sibling group should be placed in foster care rather than adoption to give Mother and Father the time to grieve their child and make the necessary improvements for the children to potentially be return to their care.

Re GS – A case involving a fact finding where the Mother was accused of involving her children and other youths in the local area in illegal drug consumption and prostitution.

Re G – Successfully represented the Mother in a case where the parents were travellers and had reacted angrily to their 16 year old daughter becoming pregnant. After litigation, the daughter was swiftly returned to her parents care.