Hudgell Solicitors has recruited civil liberties solicitor Cyrilia Davies Knight to join the firm’s growing London team.
Davies Knight joins after nine years with Birnberg Peirce, where she has specialised in handling cases of breaches of human rights, civil actions against the police, inquests and judicial reviews.
She was part of a nine-strong team that acted for 77 families in the inquests into the deaths of the 96 Liverpool football fans as a result of the Hillsborough disaster and has also represented the family of Mark Duggan, who was killed when shot by a Metropolitan Police firearms officer in 2011.
Her appointment comes on the back of rapid growth in the specialised area of civil liberties work for the firm over the past 18 months.
“When the opportunity came to join Hudgell Solicitors’ civil liberties team I carried out my own research and spoke to a number of barristers who were aware of their work, and who had worked with them on cases, and they all had great things to say,” said Davies Knight.
“It was in doing my own due diligence that it became clear that this was a great opportunity for me to be a part of the growth of this progressive firm. Hudgells is among the leading national firms in terms of the high-value, good, solid clinical negligence work it is doing, and it has rightly won recognition for its civil liberties work.”
Hudgell Solicitors’ growth of civil liberties cases has been led by Hull-based lawyer Andrew Petherbridge over the past 18 months.
The department now handles a significant number of active cases at any one time, including many of national significance in terms of holding police forces to account for their actions and investigations. Davies Knight is highly experienced in the area.
“You have to be fearless in many ways and it can be a daily uphill struggle when you are dealing with cases against major police forces, the Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and handling matters which are also politically sensitive in their nature,” she said.