We are delighted to announce that Ali Naseem Bajwa QC (Call: 1993 | Silk 2011), Keir Monteith (Call: 1994) and Maya Sikand (Call: 1997) of Garden Court Chambers have been newly appointed as Recorders by the Queen on the advice of the Lord Chancellor, The Right Honourable David Gauke MP, and The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, The Right Honourable The Lord Burnett of Maldon.
All three appointments are for the jurisdiction of crime. The Lord Chief Justice has deployed Ali Naseem Bajwa QC to the South Eastern Circuit, Keir Monteith to the North Eastern Circuit and Maya Sikand to the South Eastern Circuit.
Ali Naseem Bajwa QC is a leading criminal defence Queen’s Counsel specialising in fraud, violent crime and terrorism. Important and high-profile cases he has worked on include the ‘Skyman’ brainwashing murder trial, R v Michael Piggin, the Leicester house fire trial, the ‘Southwark rapist’ trial, the Pakistan cricket spot-fixing trial, the ‘airline liquid bomb’ trial, two control order appeals in the House of Lords, the ‘21/7’ failed London bombings trial and the ‘dirty bomb case’.
Keir Monteith is a highly sought-after leading junior who represents clients facing heavyweight criminal charges. Recent high profile case include representing defendants in an alleged gangland murder involving the discharge of up to five firearms; the infamous multi-handed South Yorkshire police helicopter case and a freedom of speech application to the European Court of Human Rights (the case of Norman). He is a member of the Executive of the Criminal Bar Association.
Maya Sikand has been in practice at the Bar since 1997, specialising in public law (in particular criminal justice related judicial reviews) as well as private law damages claims against public bodies, having first spent over a decade defending in crime. She maintains an appellate only criminal practice which focusses primarily on trafficked victims. She is a Contributing Editor of Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence & Practice (Sweet & Maxwell) and a previous Contributing Editor of Blackstone’s Criminal Practice (OUP). This year Maya was shortlisted in the Public Law Junior of the Year category in the Legal 500 Bar Awards 2018.
Official announcements on the Courts and Tribunals Judiciary website can be found here for Ali Naseem Bajwa QC and Keir Monteith, and for Maya Sikand.
Ali Naseem Bajwa QC, Keir Monteith are members of the Garden Court Chambers Crime Team and Maya Sikand is a member of the Criminal Appeals Team.
