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Overview
Adam Vaitilingam KC is one of the leading silks on the Western Circuit, with expertise in health and safety, serious crime, and environmental work. Rated in the legal directories as a specialist in all three areas of practice, he is described in Chambers & Partners 2024 as “an absolutely fantastic advocate… calm, cool and collected…clients have a huge amount of confidence in him”. He has prosecuted or defended many of the country’s most high profile cases of the last decade. He is the former head of Albion Chambers, a deputy High Court judge and a Recorder of the Crown Court.
In health and safety work, he represents clients charged in cases involving fatality or serious injury. Current and recent clients range from local authorities and construction companies to hotel operators and farmers. Cases have included 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 successfully prosecuted those responsible for the Bath tipper truck crash, when four people were killed by a runaway lorry.
In environmental work, he acts for companies and individuals charged with pollution, land contamination and waste management offences. He recently defended a company responsible for a series of major fires across South Wales and a company director accused of filling a quarry with waste. He also advises on environmental permitting.
In criminal work, he has a wide-ranging practice prosecuting and defending all types of serious allegation. Among a succession of high profile murder cases, he prosecuted Berlinah Wallace and defended Nathan Matthews, and he represented Reed Wischhusen in a recent terrorism trial. In fraud work, his current cases include a long-running multi-million pound missing trader fraud. 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 cases heard on the Western Circuit. He has appeared in a number of reported appeal cases, particularly in relation to causation and partial defences to murder.
During more than a decade in silk, Adam has represented many companies and individuals 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.
Adam also represents parents in child law fact-finding cases, particularly those involving complex medical evidence.
Away from practice, he has lectured widely in the UK and overseas – including in Russia and Hong Kong – 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), Chris Norman, Charlotte Fryer and Jo Cload (criminal work) and Michael Harding (child law).
