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Overview
Adam Vaitilingam KC is one of the country’s leading criminal silks, specialising in health and safety, environmental, fraud and homicide cases. He has prosecuted and defended some of the most high-profile cases of the last decade and in 2025 was shortlisted by Legal 500 for Crime Silk of the Year. He has been a recorder for over 20 years sitting in crime and civil work and was a Deputy High Court judge from 2019 to 2025.
HEALTH AND SAFETY
Adam represents many clients investigated or charged in health and safety cases involving fatality or serious injury. Current and recent clients range from local authorities and construction companies to hotel operators and farmers. His most recent cases include an apprentice who died in a quad bike accident on Dartmoor, a bulldozer driver killed during construction of the London Gateway Port, a scaffolder killed by a collapsing church building in Cardiff, and a Somerset farm worker who died when a telehandler malfunctioned and turned over. He also successfully prosecuted the owner and mechanic responsible for the Bath tipper truck crash, in which four people were killed by a runaway lorry. He is one of only two silks recommended for health and safety work in Chambers & Partners western circuit rankings for 2026.
ENVIRONMENTAL
Adam is the only silk recommended for environmental work in Chambers and Partners western circuit rankings for 2026, noted for his experience in handling contaminated land and pollution cases. He has represented many companies and individuals charged by the Environment Agency or National Resources Wales with pollution, noise, land contamination or waste management offences. Some of his recent cases have included defending a company responsible for a series of major fires and smoke pollution at recycling centres across South Wales; several companies charged with water pollution offences; a demolition company accused of widespread land contamination; farmers charged with burying vast quantities of illegal waste on farmland; and a company director accused of unlawfully filling a quarry with waste. He also advises on environmental permitting.
CRIMINAL
Adam has a wide-ranging practice both prosecuting and defending. Among a succession of high-profile homicide cases, often involving novel or unusual issues of law, he prosecuted Berlinah Wallace and Keiron Goodwin and defended Nathan Matthews and Anthony Snook, and he defended Reed Wischhusen against terrorism charges. In fraud work, his current cases include a long-running and very high value fraud involving Costa Rican tree plantations. He has represented many motorists accused of causing death by dangerous or careless driving. He has prosecuted and defended in some of the most serious sexual offences and represented many companies and individuals charged in a wide range of regulatory cases, from alleged planning, copyright and trademark offences to breach of the law on gangmasters and the felling of protected trees.
FAMILY
Adam represents parents in child law fact-finding cases, particularly those involving fatality and complex medical evidence.
Away from practice, he has lectured widely in the UK and overseas on human rights law and advocacy.
The above is just a short summary of Adam Vaitilingam KC’s practice. For more details of his experience in or availability for any particular type of work please contact his clerks: Nick Jeanes (environmental, health and safety and regulatory work), Rhian Nuttall, Charlotte Fryer and Jo Cload (criminal work) and Michael Harding (child law).
