[photo] Jacinta Jones (2002)Jacinta Jones (2002)

Teams

Crime, Public Law & Judicial Review, International Criminal and Human Rights law.

Education

MA (Hons) Politics, University of Edinburgh (1999)
Certificat d’Etudes Politiques, Institute Des Etudes Politiques, Universite Pierre-Mendes, (Grenoble, France)
CPE / Diploma in Law, City University, 2000

Practice

Criminal defence, judicial review, prison law, human rights.

Profile

Jacinta is currently based in Arusha, Tanzania, where she is part of the team defending Dominique Ntawukuilyayo, accused of genocide before the Internation Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda. Prior to this, she worked - as a Pegasus Scholar of the Inner Temple - on the team defending Khieu Samphan, the former President of the Khmer Rouge, at the Extraordinary Chambers of the Courts of Cambodia.

Jacinta defends - mainly in the Crown Court - where she has extensive trial experience. Offences range from serious violence, drugs and firearms, public order, fraud and immigration offences.

She continues to represent defendants in the youth and magistrates courts on occasion, particularly in complicated cases.

She has a particular expertise in dangerous dogs cases. She has represented people charged with all types of dog offences.

She has extensive experience in the Court of Appeal and in the High Court, including Habeas Corpus applications. In her judicial review practice she specialises in Crown Court bail reviews and football banning orders, and Magistrates Court adjournment application reviews, but accepts instructions in all areas.

Her prison law practice includes ‘lifer’ hearings and licence recall hearings before the Parole Board.

Jacinta formerly practised in immigration law and developed an expertise in asylum, European, bail, marriage, student and deportation cases. She provides specialist advice in offences with an immigration or deportation element.

She has a particular interest in vulnerable, young and mentally disordered defendants and in animal rights and public protest work.

Notable cases

In a junior capacity:

  • ‘Operation Fontenoy’, (nine -handed million pound conspiracy to import cocaine), Operation Scorpion’ (large scale conspiracy to cultivate cannabis)
  • R v Chaudhry (multi handed trafficking of women for prostitution, one of the first of its kind: including travelling to Dubai to obtain foreign evidence)
  • 'Operation Dramaticus' (seven-handed conspiracy to supply Class A,B and C drugs)
  • R v A & others (multi-handed firearms, drugs and perverting the course of justice)
  • R v Trinh (a cultivating cannibis trial and judicial review of a judge’s extension of custody time limits)

Alone

  • R v Sakaria (successful appeal against sentence in the Court of Appeal)
  • R v Dawit (successful high court judicial review of a judge’s refusal to grant bail – the first case in which legitimate expectation was applied to bail)
  • R v White (ongoing case stated re a football banning order)
  • R v McLeod Successful appeal against and IPP sentence for a robbery offence

Other Information

Jacinta provides voluntary legal advice for the charity CRISIS. She has a special interest in the role of the death penalty in international law. Before being called to the bar she worked as a researcher at the Centre for Capital Punishment Studies at the Universtity of Westminster and as a capital defence intern at the Chambers of Desmond Allum SC in Trinidad & Tobago, where her principal role was interviewing death row prisoners at Port-of-Spain Jail.

Her international law experience includes volunteering for the charity Prisoners Abroad and, prior to coming to the Bar, working for the European Union in Brussels in Environmental law.

Memberships

Amnesty International, Liberty, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers, Criminal Bar Association.

Interests

Travelling – particularly to unusual places, skiing, scuba diving, languages, yoga, going to concerts and festivals.

Languages

French (fluent), Spanish (fairly fluent)