Zarah Dickinson

Prosecutes and defends serious crime.

YEAR OF CALL 2002

Education

2001 Durham University, Law LLB
2002 BPP, BVC (‘Very competent’)

Memberships

Criminal Bar Association

Appointments

CPS Advocate Panel at Level 4

Overview of Practice

Zarah Dickinson is a criminal specialist with a practice covering a wide spectrum of offences. She prosecutes and defends serious and complex cases, frequently involving allegations of sexual abuse. She is a Specialist Rape Prosecutor (CPS) and Grade 4 Prosecutor (CPS) and regularly provides pre-charge advices for the Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Unit (CPS).

Zarah is highly commended for her ability to deal with vulnerable witnesses and clients and is known for her excellent client care, exact advice and robust advocacy.

Zarah is experienced in confiscation matters and regularly prosecutes on behalf of a number of local authorities. Local authority work includes benefit fraud, counterfeit goods offences, and offences under the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 and the Environmental Protection Act 1990. She also advises local authorities on judicial review. She prosecutes on behalf of the National Probation Service.

She has appellate experience and provides second-opinion advice in appeals against conviction and sentence.

Zarah has developed a specialism in driving matters, ranging from driving with excess alcohol to death by dangerous driving cases, and so has experience in advising on expert evidence and inquiries.

Zarah is an Advocacy Trainer for Inner Temple.

‘I have never experienced this type of commitment, professionalism and openness with any previous cases’ Deborah Moore, former MPS Detective Sergeant

‘Showed the utmost dedication, making those involved feel very much part of the team’ DI J Kirby, North East Borough Command Unit, Metropolitan Police

‘It was a pleasure working with you. Your ability to bring the case together from lots of analytical detail was remarkable.’ PC James Declan, Specialist Crime, Metropolitan Police

International Experience

Zarah was Crown Counsel with the Attorney General’s Chambers in the Cayman Islands in 2008.

In 2006, she was a Pegasus Scholar in Washington DC. She worked with Steptoe and Johnson in a 7-week bribery and fraud trial (USA v Jemal). She also gained experience at the District Attorney’s Office and assisted the prosecution in a murder trial at the circuit court.

Notable Cases

R v Petrou – Prosecution junior counsel in a serious and complex historical sex case involving four complainants.

R v Uddin & Others – Defence junior counsel in a highly complex multi-defendant murder / causing the death of a vulnerable adult at St Albans Crown Court.

R v Smith & Others – Prosecution junior counsel in a s.18 grievous bodily harm trial involving 9 youth defendants at Blackfriars Crown Court.

R v Ton Leo & Others – Junior counsel for one of the 14 defendants in a £4million car-ringing conspiracy. Judge Forster described the scale of the conspiracy as ‘unprecedented’ and ‘only the tip of the iceberg’.

R v GG (House of Lords) (Operation Holbein) – Involved in the preparation of the defence for one of the individual defendants in a £2 billion pharmaceutical fraud.

R v W – Successfully defended the widely publicised attempted murder of a police officer (reduced to attempt s.18), multi-count indictment with a vulnerable client who was found not guilty by reason of insanity