At three on a Saturday morning the custody suite at Stoke Newington police station fills with the night's arrests from Shoreditch and Dalston: assaults outside the bars on Curtain Road and Kingsland Road, drug possession, a knife found in a search, and a driver who assumed the back streets were safe. Everyone brought in is entitled to a solicitor, free of charge and whatever their income, before the interview starts, and criminal law solicitors in Hackney spend a good part of their weekends in that building. What is said in that first interview sets the course of the whole case.
Hackney has no magistrates' court of its own, so first hearings and summary trials are mostly listed at Highbury Corner or Thames Magistrates' Courts, with cases too serious for the magistrates sent to Snaresbrook, Wood Green or the Central Criminal Court.
The caseload reflects the borough. Alongside the night-time economy there is drug supply and county lines activity linked to the estates, robbery and violence involving young people, which brings the youth court and its different rules into play, domestic abuse allegations, public order offences, and the benefit and housing fraud prosecutions that the council and the Department for Work and Pensions bring. Motoring cases are fewer than in outer London but still include drink and drug driving and the e-scooter and delivery-rider offences of a borough that moves on two wheels.
Legal aid covers most defendants, means-tested in the magistrates' court, and the duty solicitor scheme runs around the clock. Privately funded clients should ask for a quote for each stage of the case.
Criminal defence firms serving Hackney are listed below, verified firms first. Background reading: an introduction to criminal law, the general criminal law solicitors page and the options for free legal help; for the court on Bow Road see criminal law solicitors in Tower Hamlets.
Verified