Ellen Shaw

Ellen Shaw is an established and well regarded junior who specialises in crime, regulatory, and professional discipline.

Ellen is regularly instructed to both prosecute and defend in a wide range of cases including offences against the person, dishonesty, drugs, sexual offences, intellectual property, driving offences, breach proceedings and cases involving proceeds of crime applications. Ellen provides advice and assistance to both the prosecution and defence on all aspects and stages of the criminal and regulatory enforcement process including: enforcement notices, the investigation, the decision to prosecute, and PII and disclosure issues. She also regularly advises on evidence, procedure, sentence and appeal.

Ellen is a level 3 Crown Court prosecutor, and often receives instructions as a regulatory and private prosecutor. In this capacity she frequently prosecutes for  government departments (the HMRC, DWP, DVLA and DVSA)  local councils and organisations such as the Post Office.

Ellen is a member of the specialist regulatory advocates panel in Health and Safety and Environmental law.

In her defence practice Ellen receives instructions to act along-side leading counsel but also regularly acts as solely instructed counsel in cases where the prosecution, and other defendants, have both leading and junior counsel.

Ellen accepts instructions on all types of regulatory and public law matters and has specific experience in inquiry work.

Ellen was instructed as junior counsel to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, specifically instructed on the Roman Catholic Investigation (July 2017-2019). The investigation considered the extent to which the Nolan and Cumberlege reviews of child protection in the Roman Catholic Church improved the Church’s policy and practice considering 3 case studies: firstly the English Benedictine Congregation focusing on the Schools Ampleforth and Downside, second: Ealing Abbey and St Benedict’s School and thirdly: the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

Ellen took a leading role in the review of disclosed material and supervised the redaction process. She was responsible for drafting Rule 9 statement requests and assisted with preparation for the public hearings, including the formulation of evidence proposals as well as drafting witness questions for leading counsel, she also oversaw the rule 10 procedure determining which questions from the Core Participants would be adopted by Counsel to the Inquiry. She attended the public hearings as junior counsel and was one of the four counsel who drafted the Ampleforth and Downside report. https://www.iicsa.org.uk/key-documents/6583/view/ampleforth-downside-investigation-report-august-2018.pdf

Recent examples of cases include:

R v MB and SC – instructed to prosecute a fraud committed by two men who targeted an 80yr old couple and extorted thousands of pounds in a building fraud.

R v SC – defence of a man charged with x2 s18 offences, possession of a knife and a violent disorder, successful half time submission made leading to the withdraw of the s18 and knife offences from the jury.

R v WM – defence of man charged with attempting to pervert the course of public justice on an indictment also containing murder. Ellen was instructed as sole junior when all but one of the other defendants, and the prosecution, had leading and junior counsel.

R v DA – junior counsel for the prosecution led by Guy Gozem QC in a case concerning the death of a 14 month old child, the defendant was convicted of manslaughter.

R v AA and others – defence of a lady charged with attempting to pervert the course of public justice on an indictment also containing murder and attempted murder. Ellen was instructed as sole junior when all but one of the other defendants, and the prosecution, had leading and junior counsel. Ellen  made a successful half time submission to secure the acquittal of her client.

July 2017-2019 2^nd Junior Counsel to the Inquiry: Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse, Roman Catholic Investigation. Ellen oversaw the disclosure exercise, formulated evidence proposals and drafted witness questions for leading counsel, and she also managed the rule 10 procedure for the hearings determining which questions from the Core Participants would be adopted by Counsel to the Inquiry. She was also one of the four counsel who drafted the Ampleforth and Downside report.

Operation Tweed.  R v DH and R v ML – defence of two men in separate trials under the same operation concerning the historic physical abuse of boys in care homes in the 1970-80s. The only counsel to have clients in both trials under this operation and to have both acquitted. Ellen was instructed as sole counsel in both cases where the prosecution had both leading and junior counsel.

R v MT  – defence of a man charged with threatening with a bladed article and assault. Acquitted.

R v TJ – defence of a young man (18) charged with a knife point robbery. Acquitted.

R v EB and others– defence, led junior in a case where three police officers were charged with conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

R v CH – defence of a man charged with criminal damage in the context of a neighbour dispute. Acquitted.

R v DS – defence of a man charged with a serious domestic violence assault. Acquitted

R v AT-P – defence of a single mother charged with committing an act to pervert the course of justice. No evidence was offered by the Crown.

RSPCA v JE and others – defence of three defendants all charged with a large number of animal cruelty counts.

R v KH – defence of a man charged with several counts of Fraud, trial conducted in absence of defendant.

MCC v PS – successful prosecution for a local council in  a food safety case.