Abigail Bright - View PDF

Abigail Bright

Call: 2010
Email: a.bright@doughtystreet.co.uk

Profile
Abigail is a leading junior who accepts instructions in all of chambers’ practice areas. She
specialises in extradition, complex crime and terrorism which is enhanced by civil law work.
She combines a rare depth of legal knowledge with cutting-edge ability as an advocate. She
really cares about clients.

Between 2019 and 2020, Abigail led in a multi-handed terrorism re-trial, Operation Cycler II,
concerning the proscribed group National Action. Her client was a young man with autism. At
the first trial, Operation Cycler I, Abigail defended the first defendant of four on the indictment.

Later in 2020, Abigail is again defending an autistic man charged with terrorist offences, a
Cambridge University mathematics graduate. Abigail is also instructed to defend in
Operation Cymbaline arising from the arrests of Abigail’s lay clients, Piers Corbyn,
astrophysicist and brother of Jeremy Corbyn MP, and FH, by Counter-Terrorism Unit
SO15 officers, MPS, led by Ben Cooper QC – trial listed on 23 October 2020.

In October 2019, invited by Master Treasurer, Abigail gave the Grand Day lecture at her Inn
of Court, Middle Temple, on extradition, a lecture entitled ‘The Case Against Julian Assange’.
Grand Day is described by the Inn on its website as ‘the biggest event in the Inn’s
calendar’

. That month, Abigail’s article on the Assange case was published by Counsel Magazine.

Abigail’s ten-year career at the Bar combines a thorough and intricate knowledge of civil and
criminal law, including serving as counsel to four public inquiries between 2010 and 2019.
She has also appeared for families at inquests involving deaths in custody where coroners
sit with jurors. Abigail regularly appears in the Court of Appeal in both the Civil and Criminal
Divisions. She has a busy practice challenging search warrants, production orders and
assets freezing orders. She has attended on site at Berkeley Square offices when HMRC
has executed searches and she has sat in with solicitors to advise on interviews under
caution by foreign investigators liaising with HMRC.

Cases of note include Restivo; Oakes and others [2013] 2 Cr.App.R.(S) 22, in which Abigail
was led by Edward Fitzgerald QC. This was a successful appeal of a whole life order as
wrong in principle, cited in Archbold as authority for the proposition of law that the entitlement
of a judge to make findings that offences have been committed other than those charged in
the indictment (e.g. overt acts committed in the course of a conspiracy) does not extend to
reaching a non-jury verdict about allegations put before the jury by way of similar fact
evidence, unless, perhaps, the jury must have been satisfied that they were proved, or the
defendant has been convicted of them in the past.

Six weeks later, Abigail successfully appealed a sentence for a Guatemalan national who
had been used as a cross-border cocaine mule. Abigail secured an exceptional type of costs
order to fund her instructing solicitor’s work: [2013] EWCA Crim 198. Granting Abigail’s
application for a solicitor’s costs order, Leveson LJ (later P) observed (at [16]) ‘Yes, that
would be extremely unusual, wouldn't it? I can't think of a sentence appeal where we would
normally afford a representation both for solicitor and counsel.’ A sentence of five years'
imprisonment for importation of cocaine was reduced to four years where new mitigating
factors allowed the Court to place AA in a lesser role within the guidelines. Abigail first
appeared at the application for leave.

Abigail has worked with Edward Fitzgerald in cases of constitutional importance including his
championing of the ancient English right of individual private prosecution in the Supreme
Court: The Queen (on the application of Gujra) v Crown Prosecution Service [2013] 1
A.C. 484.

In 2017 Abigail appeared for one of three claimant members of Parliament who brought
proceedings in the Investigatory Powers Tribunal to enforce a doctrine of constitutional
convention – the 1966 Harold Wilson doctrine – against the respondent intelligence and
security services: Caroline Lucas MP, Baroness Jones of Moulsecoomb AM, George
Galloway v Security Service, Secret Intelligence Service, Government Communications
Headquarters, Secretary of State for The Home Department, Secretary of State for Foreign
and Commonwealth Affairs

[2017] 1 All E.R. 283. The claims concerned targeted and incidental interception of MPs'
communications in respect of warrants obtained under the Regulation of Investigatory
Powers Act 2000 s.8(1) and s.8(4) (date of accessing/selecting such communications). The
Tribunal was required to consider a preliminary issue relating to the meaning, effect and
status of the Harold Wilson doctrine, and whether the system relating to interception of
parliamentary communications complied with the Articles 8 – 10 of the European Convention
on Human Rights.

Law reform is of real interest to Abigail. She is a founding committee member of an
independent law reform organisation, the Criminal Law Reform Now Network (CLRNN),
established in 2017 and funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. CLRNN hosts
university conferences on law reform at Oxford and Cambridge. In 2016, Abigail gave a
lecture on English law reform at All Souls College, University of Oxford, to a delegation of
standing law commissioners from the Nordic countries. Between 2007 and 2009, Abigail was
the secretary of the Oxford Pro Bono Publico (OPBP) whilst a graduate student. The
programme is run by the Law Faculty of the University of Oxford: it assists solicitors and
barristers and prepares reports for committees such as the Joint Committee of Human
Rights. In 2008 Abigail was one of the OPBP Burma (Myanmar) research team consisting of
a group of postgraduate law students whose report was published in April 2008.

Abigail presently serves on the Bar Council’s Law Reform Committee and was elected by her
peers to serve on the Criminal Bar Association (2017 to 2020).

Abigail has been a guest lecturer for registrars since 2012 at the Institute of Psychiatry. She
holds a diploma in forensic medical science (Dip.FMS), awarded after competitive
examination by the Worshipful Society of Apothecaries and Barts and the London School of
Medicine.

Abigail has worked abroad. She taught English as a foreign language at the University of
Tsinghua in Beijing in 2007. She won the prize for best speaker at the United National Model
Debates in Istanbul in 2010. She won a British Airways Leadership Scholarship to travel to
India aged seventeen. She did a stage at the European Court of Human Rights in her first
undergraduate year.

In 2020, Abigail was commended by Advocate, the Bar’s pro bono charity, for having worked
for hundreds of hours in the last twelve months on cases as diverse as defences and counter
claims in defamation cases; and advising several mothers and fathers in Hague Convention
applications.

Abigail is presently representing a 75-year-old journalist imprisoned in Turkey and indicted
with terrorism offences. In March 2020, Kirsty Brimelow QC and Abigail filed an individual
application for their client with the European Court of Human Rights.

Education
Coroners and Inquests, KCL short course, 2017

Law, War, and Human Rights, LSE short course, 2015

Dip.F.M.S. (Diploma in Forensic Medical Sciences), Barts and The London School of
Medicine, 2010

Bachelor of Civil Law (BCL), Distinction, Balliol College, University of Oxford, 2008

Law with Advanced Studies, First Class Hons., UCL, 2002-2006

Related practice areas
Criminal Law and Appeals
Business Crime and Investigations
Extradition
Data Protection and Information Law

Academic Career in Law

Abigail’s career as an academic in law started in her fourth year of university when she won
the Dean’s Prize for achieving the highest overall marks in her year for her Law final
examinations at University College, London. In the same year she won the Jeremy Bentham
Prize for Jurisprudence and Political Theory which led to her spending a paid year to edit her
university’s law journal. She went on to be appointed both as an honorary teaching fellow in
law and an honorary researcher in law, starting first in English and History university
departments and then in Law. She taught criminal law, evidence and jurisprudence at UCL.
She taught European Union constitutional and competition law whilst reading for her
Bachelor in Civil Law, Balliol College, University of Oxford, 2009, for which she attained a
Distinction. She won a graduate assistance bursary from the University of Oxford. She was a
researcher in law for Professor Ashworth at All Souls College.

Whilst a researcher in law, Abigail digested public law cases for the Administrative Court
Digest.

Abigail worked on security-level research in law on judicial corruption among European
courts.

Plaudits for Advocacy
Abigail was awarded her Inn’s most prestigious Bar studies award, the Queen Mother
Scholarship. Abigail’s early debating career was crowned when she led her school’s
debating team as captain of the Oxford Union debates. She debated at the Union as her
school’s captain in 2001 and 2002. Abigail’s mooting career led to her winning the Middle
Temple Speed Moots competition, a day of knock-out rounds. She was a keen competitor in
the Rosamund Smith Mooting Cup.

Abigail now teaches ethics on her Inn’s pupil supervisors’ course; she is qualified as an Inns
of Court approved advocacy trainer and as a pupil supervisor. Abigail mentors chambers’
pupils.

Abigail has joint responsibility for advocacy training hosted by the Kalisher Trust, a Bar
charity.

Public Inquiries and Inquests
Abigail has been instructed as counsel both to non-statutory and statutory public inquiries.

She was instructed by Eversheds LLP for the Department of Health as noting counsel to the
Mid Staffordshire General NHS Hospital Trust Inquiry between 2010 and 2011. She was
instructed by Fieldfisher LLP as counsel to the inquiry at the Independent Inquiry into Child
Sexual Abuse in 2016. She was instructed by the Treasury Solicitor’s Department as counsel
to the inquiry at the Undercover Policing Inquiry from 2016 to 2018 and as counsel to the
inquiry at the Grenfell Tower Inquiry in 2019. Abigail has a proven grasp of the Inquiries Act
2005. She is well-placed to act for interested parties at public inquiries and for bereaved
families at coroners’ inquests.

Abigail holds ‘strap room’ developed vetting for which she was sponsored by the Home
Office.

In 2020, at a mock coroners’ inquest convened before Her Majesty’s Senior Coroner for
Inner West London, Abigail demonstrated to Inn students the role of counsel for a bereaved
family. The training session was filmed to be used as an advocacy teaching aid. Abigail
persuaded the Coroner that a finding of suicide would be unsafe and should not be made
after a hanging where there had been no toxicology tests obtained to demonstrate whether
the deceased had consumed cocaine.

Professional Discipline and Regulation
Abigail prosecutes accountants for regulatory offences and advises on private prosecutions.
She is experienced in defending doctors, dentists, barristers, and solicitors. Abigail’s criminal
defence experience means she has particular expertise in defending cases concerning
allegations of dishonesty and sexual misconduct. In 2019 she successfully defended a City
solicitor in his appeal against his several convictions for violence at which his wife and two
sons came to court to give evidence against him. She successfully defended a Bar school
graduate when that student’s Inn of Court had decided not to permit that student to be Called
to the Bar on the basis of material non-disclosure pertaining to an involuntary credit
agreement.

In 2020, in the Court of Appeal Civil Division, Abigail appeared for a recently practising City
solicitor in an application to commit him to prison for several breaches of High Court freezing
orders. The application to commit to prison was made by the solicitor’s former firm and the
firm’s insurer. The committal application was prosecuted by DAC Beachcroft and counsel at
4 New Square. The appeal was against the order of imprisonment and costs made on the
indemnity basis.

Earlier this year, Abigail appeared for a businessman in his defence of an application to

commit him to prison by his business rival. Instructed by Janes Solicitors, Abigail persuaded
a judge sitting in the Commercial Court, Chancery Division, that the applicant was not able to
pursue his application against Abigail’s lay client whilst an undischarged bankrupt. A day of
legal argument was heard: an order for bankruptcy, preceded by the instituting of a committal
application, resulted in the application vesting in the Official Receiver, not the undischarged
bankrupt.

Judicial Reviews of Search Warrants; Challenges to Production and
Freezing Orders
Abigail has acted for claimants in many judicial review claims in respect of search warrants
against police forces or HMRC, all either conceded by the defendants or won in the High
Court. She is experienced in drafting skeleton arguments in response to PII applications and
s.59 applications.

Abigail’s reported cases have concerned solicitors as claimants and special procedure
material.

She appeared in The Queen (on the application of S) v Chief Constable of the British
Transport Police [2014] 1 W.L.R. 1647. Allowing the applications, search warrants for
excluded material and special procedure material at solicitors' premises would be quashed
for failure to comply with the requirements of PACE 1984, s.9 and Sch.1. Police had been
attempting to trace a multiple murder suspect (S) in relation to an arson attack which had
claimed the lives of eight people.

Abigail appeared in a case that is reported as a Practice Note: The Queen (on the
application of AB and CD) v Huddersfield Magistrates' Court; Chief Constable of West
Yorkshire Police (re solicitors; search warrants) [2015] 1 W.L.R. 4737. Allowing the
applications, a specific premises warrant issued by a magistrates' court under the Police and
Criminal Evidence Act 1984, s.8, was held by the Court to be unlawful; the police had failed
to inform the court that the occupants of the premises were solicitors, which on the facts was
a relevant consideration; further, the warrant was unfocused in respect of the articles sought.

Abigail was instructed by Byrne and Partners in The Queen (on the application of
Kouyoumjian) v Hammersmith Magistrates’ Court (defendant); Metropolitan Police Service
(MPS) (interested party) [2015] A.C.D. 27. Allowing the application, the sole issue in dispute
was whether all of the material seized under the quashed orders, including any copies,
should be returned to S and M immediately despite the pending application under s.59(5)(b).

No authorities dealt specifically with the question of what factors should take into account
when deciding whether or not to grant an order in such circumstances. At the time the police
applied for the original search warrants the search was in relation to material relevant to a
drugs investigation. The purpose of the investigation quickly shifted from drugs towards
financial matters. There had been no explanation as to why. Both the Magistrates’ Court and
the Crown Court had been misled as to the true position.

In 2020, Abigail secured a consent order recognising the unlawfulness of issue and
execution of a warrant. The defendant Force conceded the illegality on the day of a listed PII
application.

Special Jurisdiction Crime: Terrorism and Extradition
In crime, Abigail has chosen to focus on areas of special jurisdiction: fraud, terrorism,
extradition and mutual legal assistance. She has twice given evidence to Parliamentary
Select Committees in the House of Lords and House of Commons on terrorism (2018) and
the role of the Forensic Science Regulator (2019). She taught a delegation of judges on a
ten-day residential course at a rule of law institute in Prague on terrorist financing, risk and
money laundering (2019) organised by the Judicial Training Administration Institute in
Bangladesh and the United States’ Department of Justice. Abigail’s particular focus was on
the UN principles of press reporting of terrorism trials. Abigail assisted to draft a ‘routes to
verdict’ Bar Bench on terrorism now approved and used by the judiciary in the terrorism
courts in Dhaka and Jhalokathi, Bangladesh. Abigail was invited to judge the Nuremberg
Moot Court competition and taught on the South Africa International Advocacy course.

Terrorism
Some terrorist cases of note in which Abigail has appeared or is currently instructed include
the following:

Operation Cymbaline: arrests of Piers Corbyn, astrophysicist and brother of Jeremy
Corbyn MP, and FH, by Counter-Terrorism Unit SO15 officers, Metropolitan Police
Service, led by Ben Cooper QC – trial listed on 23 October 2020.

Operation Nicodemean: trial listed in November 2020, Manchester Crown Court, of a
graduate of Pembroke College, University of Cambridge, for an offence under s.58,
Terrorism Act 2000.

Operation Enticer, Southwark Crown Court, September 2020, perverting the course of justice
immediately before a series of interviews under caution for terrorism offences

Operation Darrien, Southwark CC, Bitcoin financing of terrorist activities, December 2019

Operation Cycler I, jury hung, defending first defendant of four on indictment, January to May
2019

Operation Cycler II, appearing as leading counsel for an autistic defendant, January to March
2020

Operation Gorlois, sole defendant of five to be acquitted, March to May 2018

Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance
Abigail is writing a title intended for publication by Oxford University Press, Extradition
Appeals.

Abigail is regularly instructed to defend in non-EU extradition requests under Part 2 of the
Extradition Act 2003 – most recently requests issued by India, the United States of America,
Moldova, Albania and Australia. Over fourteen months spanning 2019 and 2020, Abigail was
instructed as sole counsel to defend a dual UK-Nigerian citizen accused of fraud in New York
and sought for prosecution by the United States of America. She conducted negotiations with
the prosecutor by liaising with the defendant’s New York appointed lawyer to secure her
client’s eligibility for bail upon his voluntary return to New York. The seriousness of the fraud
schemes involved the theft and laundering of more than $2 million. The defendant’s alleged
role was prominent as a principal perpetrator.

In 2020, Abigail also persuaded the Chief Magistrate, at the outset of extradition
proceedings, to order a general reporting restriction of her lay client’s name in an Australian
accusation request.

Earlier in 2020, at the very first hearing, Abigail secured GS’s discharge in extradition
proceedings. GS was an Albanian national. Whereas the submitted that the framework list
was ticked for ‘murder, grievous bodily harm’, Abigail clarified that that information was
misleading. The true information was that the allegation was certainly not murder, a Polish

Appeal Court having specifically ruled upon why the misconduct accused is ‘not to be
regarded as murder’: see the judgment of 09 November 2012 of the Divisional Court (at [2])
in [2012] EWHC 3878 (Admin). The true information was that ‘fatal wounding’ was alleged,
for which there is a reserved statutory maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment.
Abigail submitted that the real merits of this extradition request should be considered
promptly that day, not on a later occasion. The issuing judicial authority unsuccessfully
opposed this course. Abigail argued that plainly the warrant was a re-certification of exactly
the same warrant (issued on 27 December 2011) on which discharge had before been
ordered, the Divisional Court in 2012 having upheld that order as lawful. Careful scrutiny of
the National Crime Agency’s certification demonstrated this. Abigail persuaded the judge to
determine and rule the same day on the merits of the legal argument by submitting that the
liberty of her lay client impelled doing so in issue. The judge agreed and acceded to Abigail’s
application. A costs order was made.

Abigail has particular expertise of defending requests from Nordic EU Member States
(Finland, Sweden and Denmark), and, in 2020, was instructed in the only two Finnish current
cases before the UK courts: Abigail is challenging as unlawful the lack of independence of
Finnish prosecutors.

She successfully defended in a German extradition request having raised section 13(a) of
the Act, extraneous considerations, as a statutory bar to extradition that is rarely raised
(‘the Part 1 warrant issued in respect of him (though purporting to be issued on account of
the extradition offence) is in fact issued for the purpose of prosecuting or punishing him on
account of his race, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation or political opinions’). In
so doing Abigail challenged as unlawful, because politically motivated, Germany’s extradition
request for a prominent 86-year-old Holocaust survivor who had been convicted in Germany
of serial thefts for decades of Old Masters from Third Reich-funded art galleries and whose
charitable trust had repatriated those works to Jewish galleries and museums.

Led by Edward Fitzgerald QC, Abigail’s defence of Mr Restivo in Italy v. Danilo Restivo (“the
Hair Fetishist Killer”, convicted of two murders) resulted in the longest ever adjournment of
an extradition request, adjourned by the Chief Magistrate from 2016 to “circa the year 2050”.

Led again by Edward Fitzgerald QC, Abigail’s defence of Mr Dhillon in Germany v. Dhillon
led to permission to appeal being granted on the unprecedented and novel ground that
Germany’s national constitutional arrangements barring extradition to non-EU countries
amount to “non-reciprocity” and so offend basic precepts of international law. A day has been
listed for argument.

Fraud, Cybercrime & Money Laundering
Abigail’s fraud practice spans both civil and criminal frauds. She was led by Peter Lownds of
2 Hare Court in 2015 in a boiler room fraud trial at Southwark Crown Court that resulted in
Peter and Abigail’s client’s acquittal after six weeks. She was again led by Peter Lownds in
2018 and 2019 to defend a private prosecution of a businessman for fraudulent trading and
trading and copyright offences brought by the British Phonographic Industry (‘BPI’). In 2020,
Peter and Abigail are again together defending in ancillary applications for financial orders
privately prosecuted by the BPI.

Abigail is co-defending in several multi-handed frauds listed for trial in London courts in 2021.

Before reading for the Bar, Abigail was instructed as a solicitors’ agent, for six months, for
two defendants, to note each day of a multi-handed mass cocaine importation trial by the
then Resident Judge at Oxford Crown Court. Abigail gained an early and comprehensive
insight of litigation by liaising daily between solicitors and instructed counsel, attending upon
the defendants in the cells.

The defendants were acquitted. As a pupil, Abigail was instructed by solicitors at a civil fraud
department, acting for Commerzbank AG, for twelve weeks, to note a multi-handed fraud trial.

Drugs; Murder
Abigail has served for three years to date (2017 to present) on the independent Forensic
Science Advisory Council of the Forensic Science Regulator and on Home Office Biometrics
and Forensics Ethics Group and Forensic Science Regulatory Committees. She regularly
attends the ‘Science and the Law’ programme of lectures at the Royal Society.

Abigail is a co-author of The Drugs Offences Handbook published by Bloomsbury in 2018.

Joe Stone QC led Abigail in four murder trials in Abigail’s first two years as a tenant. A trial at
the Central Criminal Court concerned an Indian man who had served for years as a police
officer who killed his wife in London days into an arranged marriage entered into by choice.
Professor Nigel Eastman and Professor Michael Kopelman reported that the defendant
suffered from the rarer than rare psychiatric disorder of morbid or pathological jealousy
(‘Othello syndrome’). The Crown decided to accept a plea of guilty to manslaughter by
reason of diminished responsibility.

Rape and Serious Sexual Offences
Abigail has defended in tens of rape trials and cross-examined child complainants per s.28.