Kimberley Obrusik

Kim is a popular and experienced leading junior.  She specialises in high-profile cases and is regularly instructed to prosecute and defend in cases involving serious organised crime groups. She accepts instructions in regulatory cases, business crime, professional discipline and inquests and is regularly instructed in evidentially dense, multiple defendant cases, including cases involving fatalities and cases of homicide. Kim was called to the Bar in 2010 and practiced from chambers in Preston before joining Lincoln House Chambers in 2022.

Kim’s practice focuses on serious crime. She has an abundance of experience across the whole ambit of criminal law and is willing to accept instructions, both as trial advocate and junior counsel, in cases involving extreme violence (including Murder & Manslaughter), large scale drug conspiracies, serious sexual offences, fraud and dishonesty. Kim has been involved in some of the Northern Circuit’s most significant multi handed drug conspiracy matters in recent years.

Kim is well known for her excellent client relationships and client care as at the heart of her work. Through very thorough early case preparation, Kim quickly inspires the loyalty of both her lay-client and those instructing her. Kim is also well known as being a very powerful and persuasive advocate.

Upon completing her undergraduate degree Kim spent time in New Orleans where she undertook an internship with the Capital Post Conviction Project of Louisiana. During this time she was responsible for the investigation and preparation of court documentation for two of the office’s most notorious cases (A. Frank and M. Weary).

Kim has “a warm and charismatic personality that draws clients in and gains their trust immediately, going on to impress them with the mastery of her brief and incisive strategy”- Carrie Gilgun (Forbes)

NOTABLE CASES

• Organised Crime (Firearms & Drugs conspiracies)
  • Operation Brent – Led Junior for the Crown in the prosecution of seven defendants for conspiracy to rob and inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent.
  • Operation Drever – Leading Junior for the Crown (CCU) in a prosecution of 4 defendants for conspiracy to possess firearms with intent to endanger life (Encro case).
  • Operation Thunder – Initially instructed as led junior for the Crown in a prosecution of 22 defendants for conspiracy to supply class A drugs. I was later instructed as Leading Junior for the Crown for the three listed trials.
  • Operation Melford – Led Junior for the Crown in successful prosecution of eleven defendants charged with conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
  • Operation Lawson – Successfully defended one of eight defendants for a county lines conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
  • Operation Jennet – Successfully defended one of seven defendants for a county lines conspiracy to supply class A drugs.
  • Operation Spoonbill – Successfully defended one of ten defendants charged with conspiracy to supply class A drugs in Blackpool.
  • Operation Enigma – Represented the defendant at the head of a conspiracy to supply class A drugs involving 39 defendants.
  • R v LH – Represented one of three defendants- successful application to dismiss- firearms.
  • R v HF- successful application to dismiss- firearms licencing offence.

• Upcoming cases
  • Operation Quantum- instructed as prosecution counsel in a 7 handed drugs conspiracy.
  • Operation Rockingham- instructed defence counsel.
  • Operation Frozen- instructed defence counsel.
  • Operation Gaskett – instructed defence counsel.

• Serious Violence
  • R v PH – Defended in trial of the facts concerning the attempted murder of the defendant’s wife. The defendant was not fit to plead or stand trial due to a diagnosis of dementia. He had previously served a life sentence for the murder of his first wife.
  • R v CA & Others – Instructed to prosecute 8 defendants, a number of whom were youths, for offences of inflicting grievous bodily harm with intent and violent disorder.
  • R v SA – Instructed as junior defence counsel in the attempted murder of the defendant’s ex-partner and the murder of her 15-year-old son.
  • Operation Pintail – Successful prosecution of four defendants for a spree of commercial armed robberies across Cheshire, Greater Manchester and Lancashire.
  • R v Ward & Others – successfully prosecuted 4 defendants for their role in the burglary and extensive criminal damage committed at Thwaites Brewery in Blackburn in 2018.

• Sex
  • R v CD- instructed to defend- defendant acquitted of rape and sentenced to a suspended sentence for sexual assault.
  • R v PB- instructed to defend- acquitted of 4 counts of rape after a retrial.
  • R v DB- instructed to defend- following a successful s.41 application based on extensive viewing of telephone evidence, all sexual offences including rape not pursued by prosecution.
  • R v KH- instructed to defend in the youth court- a 14-year-old defendant who was charged with serious sexual offences including rape and assault by penetration.

• High profile
  • Operation Leaf- Junior defence counsel in a perverting the course of justice trial where the defendant was convicted of making false allegations of rape and human trafficking.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/14/eleanor-williams-jailed-lying-rapes-trafficking

• Operation Calloway- Defence counsel in multi-handed trial involving firearms, s.18, conspiracy to supply drugs, perverting the course of justice and arson.

https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/two-gangsters-blasted-terrifying-street-25498004

• R v JW & Others – successfully prosecuted 4 defendants for their role in the burglary and extensive criminal damage committed at Thwaites Brewery in Blackburn in 2018.

https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/men-jailed-over-313000-thwaites-15867566

• R v PH & RJ – Instructed as junior defence counsel, being led by Peter Wright KC.

https://www.lancs.live/news/lancashire-news/trial-date-set-chorley-prison-25902101

• Private Client
  • R v RR- case involving the possession of indecent images of children & obscene publications- suspended sentence imposed.
  • R v SG- acquitted of rape following a 6-day trial.
  • R v DG- acquitted of driving offences in the Magistrates court.
  • R v AC- defendant charged with assault by penetration, sexual assault of an adult and sexual assault of a child under 13 years- mixed verdicts.
  • R v JM- committal for sentence for assault occasioning actual bodily harm- suspended sentence imposed.
  • R v WH- defendant charged with coercive controlling behaviour in an intimate relationship- listed for trial in 2024.