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Laura Culley

Year of Call: 2006

Areas Of Specialism

Drugs & Gang-Related Offences, Financial crime, Sexual Offences

Career overview

Joined Citadel in 2008 following successful completion of pupillage. Prior to this, she worked as a paralegal in a firm of solicitors specialising in fraud and ‘white collar’ crime which consisted of caseloads relating to a variety of High Cost cases and Proceeds of Crime Act applications.

Practice Summary

A grade 3 Rape and Serious Sexual Offce (RASSO) accredited prosecutor, Laura has been instructed by the Complex Casework Unit and International Justice Serious Organised Crime divisions of the CPS as both junior and leader. Laura has extensive defence experience, including representing particularly vulnerable defendants. Recent memorable instructions include: prosecution junior of two large scale multi-defendant drug importations, which involved cross border work with prosecutors in Holland; prosecution of a woman who was impersonating a doctor for fraud; prosecution of a prolific paedophile who received a life sentence; securing the acquittal of a young autistic man accused of rape and securing the acquittal of a young man facing allegations of armed robbery.

In addition, Laura has a breadth of experience in the civil courts, including conducting many cases on behalf of West Midlands Police.

Details of practice

Instructed to prosecute and defend in a wide variety of criminal matters with a particular emphasis on fraud cases, and drug offences.
Defence experience encompasses the full spectrum of criminal cases, including offences of violence, dishonesty and fraud, and sexual offences: recently secured a series of acquittals in cases where defendants were charged with rape and other serious sexual offences.
Laura also has extensive experience of dealing with privately funded road traffic cases including arguments on special reasons and exceptional hardship.

Sexual Offences
  • Successfully defended an 18-year-old accused of rape of his boyfriend.
  • Successfully defended a man in his early 20s accused of rape of a female friend in a car park on a night out.
  • Worked with an intermediary to make sure a defendant with an extremely low IQ had the least distressing experience he possibly could of going through the court system. Defendant ultimately sentenced to a community order for attempting to incite a child to engage in sexual activity.
Financial crime

Laura has extensive experience working for West Midlands Police on a range of civil and criminal applications, including Proceeds of Crime Act matters, high value forfeiture cases to a value of up to £1.3 million, disclosure from the Family Courts, and representing the police in civil actions.

  • Secured convictions for fraud in May of 2019 of a defendant who posed as a medical practitioner in order to defraud multiple elderly victims in Warwickshire.
Drugs and gang-related offences
  • Currently instructed as junior for the prosecution in a case against 7 defendants charged with conspiracies to import large quantities of Class A drugs from Holland. A National Crime Agency investigation with international dimensions, led by a Principal Crown Advocate from the CPS.
  • Successfully prosecuted as junior to Anthony Warner two multi defendant drugs conspiracies in 2016 and 2017.

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Further Information

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Downloads

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Witness Familiarisation Support And Courses

These are a few examples of courses in which our members have been involved:

  • Witness familiarisation with trainee police officers and special constables from Northamptonshire Police, where the officers were questioned regarding their statements about ‘mock’ arrest exercises
  • Similar exercises with detectives from the West Midlands Police
  • Witness familiarisation with officers of the Northamptonshire Probation Service.  These officers were given training on the process of giving evidence in sentencing hearings in the Magistrates Court and Crown Court
  • Expert witness familiarisation and training, with expert witnesses such as independent Forensic Scientists, and officers of the Health and Safety Executive. The exercises involved questioning regarding expert reports prepared by the participants

Equal Opportunity Policy

 

Citadel’s members come from a range of backgrounds and everyone is treated with the same respect as part of our Chamber’s community. 

 

We operate an equal opportunity policy and act in accordance with the Bar Code of Conduct and the Equality Code for the Bar.

 

We seek to prevent direct or indirect discrimination towards our clients, staff, tenants and pupils, on the grounds of race, colour, ethnic or national origin, nationality or citizenship, political persuasion, religion, gender, sexual orientation, marital status, disability or age.

Maternity / Paternity Policy

We support all members  who  are fortunate enough to become parents.   Whilst Citadel has written policies dealing with issues of maternity and paternity leave for members of Chambers and support staff, we also try to be flexible in our approach and to accommodate individual needs.

Uniquely (to our knowledge) we offer direct financial support to members returning from parental leave in order to cushion the cash flow impact of return to practice . 

Click here to listen to a podcast about our members with children and how we deal with childcare issues.