Kirsty Brimelow KC

Career

Kirsty specialises in criminal law and also in public law and international human rights law. She has particular expertise in homicide, fraud, sexual offences, drugs and torture cases, child rights and vulnerable witness cases and the law of peaceful protest. She is the only KC to have represented protestors in both the civil and criminal Court of Appeal; establishing legal precedent.

Kirsty has appeared for both defence and prosecution, leading in both Criminal and Civil Courts of Appeal, the Supreme Court, Privy Council and the ECHR. She has defended before Courts Martial, the Court of Appeal in the British Virgin Islands, the High Court in Gibraltar and an Impeachment Tribunal in Trinidad and Tobago.

Kirsty is often is instructed in cases with complex human rights elements, frequently to challenge cases which are legal “firsts”. An expert in International Human Rights Law, Kirsty was elected the first female Chair of the Bar Human Rights Committee of England and Wales (BHRC) and completed a 6-year term in December 2018, having served on the Executive for 15 years. She has advised and intervened in human rights cases around the world including in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, the International Criminal Court, the ECOWAS Court in Nigeria, the Superior Tribunal of Santander Colombia, the Supreme Court of the United States and courts in the Maldives, South Sudan, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan and the Czech Republic and before the United Nations.