Ross is a key member of the Crime team having been with the firm since 2000, when he started as a trainee Solicitor. He is the Deputy Crown Court Supervisor and plays an important role in the supervision and training of other staff members.
Qualifying as a duty solicitor in 2004 and as a Higher Court Advocate in 2008, Ross has considerable litigation and advocacy experience. He represents clients from the police investigation stage, right through to trial in the Crown Court. He has also had a number of successful cases in the Court of Appeal.
Known for his meticulous approach and attention to detail, he has the ability to get right to the heart of the case and achieves remarkable results. He is calm under pressure and has excellent judgement.
Ross takes technically and legally challenging cases in his stride: his expertise includes confiscation; serious sexual offences; high value fraud; large scale drugs cases and homicide. He has appeared as an advocate in several murder cases at the Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey), including a successful application for bail and has been involved in a number of cases resulting in acquittals for murder. In his confiscation cases his detailed analysis and perseverance has resulted in reductions of hundreds of thousands of pounds from amounts sought by the prosecution.
Ross is a very experienced Crown Court trial advocate. He has successfully represented defendants in dozens of trials involving extremely serious allegations including rape, GBH, class A drug dealing and arson with intent to endanger life.
His excellence in his profession has been recognised in the form of two part time judicial appointments. In January 2017 Ross was appointed as a Deputy District Judge (Magistrates Court) and in 2018 he was appointed as a Recorder in the Crown Court. He sits part time on the South Eastern Circuit.
Notable cases include:
- R v LM – advocate in a lengthy multi-handed case concerning the arson which closed the M1, at a cost of £5 million. The young defendant was found not guilty of this offence after trial. This case attracted national media attention.
- R v CP – junior advocate for the News Editor of the Sun newspaper, who successfully defended allegations of bribing public officials for confidential information as part of the large scale Operation Elveden. This case involved managing tens of thousands of pages of evidence. The first trial lasted over three months at Kingston Crown Court before a re-trial at the Central Criminal Court. Ross was instrumental in a successful legal argument which shaped the course of the re-trial. The case received widespread media attention.
- R v PE – junior advocate for the chauffeur of Rebekah Brooks, alleged to have been involved in a conspiracy with her and others to pervert the course of justice. This allegation was connected to the phone hacking case, which was one of the biggest trials in modern history. After submissions were made and others were acquitted after trial, the prosecution ultimately offered no evidence against the defendant.
- R v HA – appeared as sole advocate representing a defendant accused of murder at the Central Criminal Court. A guilty plea to manslaughter on the basis of diminished responsibility was accepted by the Crown and the defendant received a hospital order following successful mitigation.
- R v DP – advocate in successful appeal in the Court of Appeal where a custodial sentence was replaced with a hospital order in relation to a serious GBH case. This was an exceptional case, which was reported: [2016] EWCA Crim 506.
- R v MNA – advocate in a lengthy multi-handed trial at Snaresbrook Crown Court. The allegations included conspiracy to supply controlled drugs, kidnapping, false imprisonment and GBH.
- R v TH – drafted a legal argument in a case concerning the alleged downloading of indecent images of children, which resulted in the Crown discontinuing the case.