Simon Creighton

Practice Areas

Simon Creighton specialises in prison and public law, working particularly with life sentenced prisoners. He also specialises in privacy and date protection matters within the criminal justice system. He has extensive experience of public law challenges and applications to the European Court of Human Rights.

Career

Simon was a founding partner at Bhatt Murphy and is now a consultant to the firm. He has practised in prison law since 1993 when he was appointed as the first solicitor to the Prisoners’ Advice Service. He was one of the first lawyers to work exclusively in this area and as well as conducting his own cases, through writing and education he has helped ensure that prison law is now seen as a distinct area of practice in its own right. He also acts in data protection and privacy cases in the criminal justice system. He acts for several of the core participants in the Undercover Policing Inquiry.

Simon has acted in many of the key prison cases and has provided advice and input to other lawyers in their work. His work on data protection and privacy has included the Leveson Inquiry and media phone hacking cases, the key case on the protection of identities for children convicted of crime and the Supreme Court case that established the power to judicially review the Investigatory Power Tribunal. He is regularly asked to comment in the media on issues affecting prisoners. He is the co-author of the two leading textbooks in this area, "Prisoners: Law & Practice" and "Parole Board hearings: Law & Practice", both published by LAG. He is Vice-President of the European Prison Litigation Network which has participatory status at the Council of Europe. He was the LAPG Lawyer of Year in Public Law in 2016.

Simon is a Fee-Paid Tribunal Judge in the First Tier Tribunal (Health and Social Entitlement), Mental Health having been appointed in 2020.

Publications

Simon co-authors two leading textbooks in this area, "Prisoners: Law & Practice" and "Parole Board hearings: Law & Practice".