Christopher Donnellan KC

Christopher Donnellan KC has extensive experience in prosecuting and defending serious crime including murder, manslaughter, and death by driving. He has particular expertise in health and safety cases involving death in the workplace and transport industry. He has also prosecuted serious sexual offence cases including a country wide paedophile group.

Prosecuting on the Midlands and South Eastern Circuits he has presented complex cases to the jury involving gunshot residue, DNA, mobile ‘phone and cell site data, and CCTV imagery. Recent cases included the attempted murder in Leicester of four victims chosen at random : the first a child mown down by a car, and others stabbed in the street: an elderly man on his way to the shop, a mother collecting her child after school, and a child standing on the pavement as his mother parked her car, (R -v- Racitalal) with evidence pieced together from complex expert imagery comparison from CCTV.

Defending, he recently secured the acquittal of murder (joint enterprise) of one of group of young men present when the victim was stabbed in the street in Oxford, successfully challenging the interpretation of the CCTV evidence as presented by the Crown.

With his experience of prosecuting a train driver following the Watford train crash in which one person died and others seriously injured he was invited to co-author the response of the Bar to the Corporate Manslaughter Bill, and gave evidence to the House of Commons Committee.