The August bank holiday brings one of the largest street festivals in the world to Notting Hill, and the arrests that follow Carnival, for drugs, weapons, assaults and public order, fill West London Magistrates' Court in Hammersmith for weeks. Criminal law solicitors in Kensington and Chelsea plan for it, and for a caseload shaped by a borough with extreme wealth at one end and real deprivation at the other: burglary of prime homes in Chelsea and Holland Park, watch snatching in Knightsbridge, drug supply around Earl's Court and Ladbroke Grove, drink driving on the Embankment and the Cromwell Road, and the noisy supercars that the council's public space order targets.
Anyone arrested in the borough, or asked to attend a voluntary interview at Kensington police station on Earl's Court Road, can have a solicitor in the interview without charge, whatever their income, and a good one attends in person. First appearances are at West London Magistrates' Court; cases too serious for the magistrates are usually sent to Isleworth Crown Court, with the gravest going to the Old Bailey. Firms here also handle the fraud and money laundering investigations that follow money through Kensington's property, immigration offences, and professional discipline for the doctors and finance staff who live here.
Grenfell has brought a different kind of criminal law to the borough: a police investigation into corporate manslaughter and other offences that has outlasted the public inquiry, with solicitors acting for bereaved families, survivors and witnesses as well as for those under investigation.
Legal aid is means-tested in the magistrates' court and available with contributions in the Crown Court; a few local firms hold contracts. Private fees are quoted per stage.
Criminal defence firms serving Kensington and Chelsea are listed below, verified first. See what criminal law involves, the general criminal law solicitors page, whether you can get legal help for free and criminal law solicitors in Hammersmith and Fulham, where the court sits.
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