Administrative Law or Judicial Review
Criminal Law
Human Rights
Public Inquiries
Full member of the Bar of Northern Ireland since 2021. Called to the Bar of England and Wales in 2015 (formerly solicitor advocate 2002 - 2015).
Author of the text books on the use of covert investigatory powers (interception, comms data, equipment interference, covert human intelligence sources and encryption).
Handles cases involving these areas across the civil, criminal and regulatory jurisdictions.
Former Attorney General’s Special Advocate (terrorism cases).
LLB, LLM (honorary posts held at Leeds, York and Birmingham Law Schools)
Advised the government on national security-related matters, domestic and international counter-terrorism operations and the whole range of surveillance law issues (from interception, equipment interference and other covert surveillance to informers and witness protection matters).
One of the Attorney General’s Special Advocates (Terrorism) for ten years so experience in the legal issues arising out of the handling of sensitive intelligence, disclosure, terrorism and other national security-related law generally (such as, for example, Official Secrets Act offences).
Simon’s practise encompasses acting in and advising on serious criminal, civil and regulatory matters (he is often brought into ongoing cases to advise on surveillance law issues involving intercept, electronic surveillance, informers and undercover policing), judicial reviews, media law, advisory work on the Investigatory Powers Act 2016 and civil claims (actions for/against the state, misuse of private information, civil claims for unlawful interception).
Has appeared and continues to appear in public inquiries.
Blackstone’s Guide to The Investigatory Powers Act 2016
Covert Policing Law and Practice (new edition pending)
Information Rights: A Practitioner’s Guide to Data Protection, Freedom of Information and other Information Rights (Bloomsbury) September, 2023. Co-authored, with Rupert Bowers KC of Doughty Street the chapter relating to investigations and offences
Counter-terrorism, Constitutionalism and Miscarriages of Justice, A Festschrift for Professor Clive Walker (Hart, November 2018) (wrote the chapter on Public Interest Immunity and fair trial rights)
Legal regulation of intelligence services in the United Kingdom’ in Dietrich, J-H. and Eiffler, S.R. (eds.), Handbuch des Rechtsgrundlagen der Nachrichtendienste (Richard Boorberg, Stuttgart, 2017) pp.1855-1933 (co-wrote chapter with Professor Clive Walker on regulation of UK intelligence gathering)
Legal regulation of intelligence services in the United Kingdom’ in Dietrich, J-H. and Eiffler, S.R. (eds.), Handbuch des Rechtsgrundlagen der Nachrichtendienste (Richard Boorberg, Stuttgart, 2017) pp.1855-1933 (co-wrote chapter with Professor Clive Walker on regulation of UK intelligence gathering)
Investigating Terrorism, Wiley (2015) (co-wrote the chapter, Community Surveillance and Terrorism, with Professor Clive Walker)
Handbook of Law & Terrorism, Routledge (2015) (co-wrote the chapter, Surveillance Powers and the Generation of Intelligence within the law, with Dr Jon Moran)
Entrapment: competing views on the effect of the Human Rights Act on English criminal law, European Human Rights Law Review, 2002, 6, 764-774
Judicial Review, Article 10 and Public Inquiries, Judicial Review, 2002, 7(4), 260-263
The Definition of the Covert Human Intelligence Source, Archbold News, 2004, 2, 5-6 (cited in Fulton & Ors, R. v (No.9) [2006] NICC 34, 08 May 2006)
Telephone intercepts and their admissibility (with Professor David Ormerod), Criminal Law Review 2004, January, 15-38 (cited in R v E [2004] Cr App R 29)
Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, Part I: meaning of “interception”, Journal of Criminal Law, 2005, 69(2), 106-109
Approaching Allegations of Entrapment Parts 1 and 2, Criminal Law & Justice 2009, 173 (1/2), 11-14 and 173(3), 33-35