Peter Skelton KC

Practice Areas

Peter Skelton KC specialises in Inquests, Public Inquiries, and complex Personal Injury Litigation. He is regularly instructed by families, corporate bodies, charities, government departments, coroners, and tribunals, and has appeared in many of the most high-profile cases of the last 20 years.

Most recently, Peter has been instructed in the Covid Inquiry, the Infected Blood Inquiry, the Undercover Policing Inquiry, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, the Reading Terror Attack Inquests, the Gosport Memorial Hospital Inquests, the Birmingham Inquests (1974), and the Stephen Port Inquests.

Peter’s personal injury practice encompasses the full spectrum of complex and high-value litigation, including human rights, clinical negligence, physical and sexual abuse, and international claims. He has been instructed in many high-profile group actions for both claimants and defendants. These include the claims arising from the abuse perpetrated by David Fuller, Jimmy Savile, and Max Clifford, and the malpractice of former surgeons Ian Paterson and Rob Jones; together with the claims brought in respect of Guantánamo Bay detention camp and the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya in the 1950s.

Before taking silk, Peter was appointed to the Attorney General’s A, B and C panels, and as a Special Advocate. For many years, he has acted for government departments and agencies in some of their most sensitive cases.

Peter is also the founder and current chair of the Inquests and Inquiries Bar Association and the co-author of two of the leading books in the field, Public Inquiries (Oxford) and The Inquest Book (Hart).