Background
Sarah Ricca is a founding partner of Deighton Pierce Glynn. She has been a senior consultant since August 2024. She qualified as a solicitor at Simons Muirhead & Burton in 1995. She later joined Hickman and Rose where she specialised in actions against the police and other public authorities, and became a partner. She moved to Deighton Guedalla as a partner in 2008, which in 2012 merged with Pierce Glynn.
Expertise
In the Chambers legal directory, Sarah is top ranked in police law and in civil liberties and human rights. She is described as “an amazing tactician” and “a tough negotiator” who is “very clever” and “absolutely committed to her clients”.
Sarah is a senior, highly experienced litigator with a wealth of expertise representing people who have experienced human rights and civil liberties violations at the hands of the criminal justice system and other state agencies. She works with clients whose loved ones have died after state failings, to secure damning conclusions from inquest juries. She helps clients fight to secure changes in policies and procedures, disciplinary action, and to recover compensation through civil claims. She works with charities and other frontline organisations in strategic interventions in cases seeking changes to the law.
Cases include:
- Inquests and claims arising from death following restraint or other use of force by police
- Inquests and claims arising from death or serious harm as a result of domestic abuse, where probation, police, mental health and other state bodies have failed to address the risk posed by the perpetrator; she is described in the Chambers legal directory as ‘knowing this area of law better than anyone’
- Interventions on behalf of charities and other front-line organisations
- Race discrimination claims arising from unlawful use of police and other state powers against Black and minoritised people;
- Public and private law claims for women subjected to sexual and other violence who have been failed by the criminal justice system.
- Claims arising from the unlawful policing of protests.
- Claims for disability discrimination and human rights violations for victims of disability hate crime and their families who are failed by the police, social services and other authorities.
Sarah receives referrals from a number of charities, campaigning organisations and activists, including anti-racist campaigns, and organisations advancing the rights of abused women, vulnerable young people in prison, and immigration detainees.
She is a longstanding member of the Police Action Lawyers Group which she convened from 1998 to 2012. She is also a member of Inquest Lawyers’ Group.
Sarah is a founding trustee of the Centre for Women’s Justice. She is also a trustee of Medical Justice, which defends and advances the health rights of people in immigration detention.
Notable Cases
Grenfell Tower fire
Represented survivors of the fire in the Inquiry and civil claims.
Deaths arising from police use of force
Inquest and civil claim arising from death of Andrew McCleary – represents Andrew’s family, with Elliot Bannister – secured a jury conclusion of unlawful killing on the grounds of unlawful act manslaughter in relation to the death of Andrew, a Black man, following restraint for 18 minutes by police and ambulance staff, with the purported aim of securing hospital treatment for his elevated heart rate, due to him having taken cocaine. Now representing the family in the Chief Constable’s judicial review of the jury’s conclusion. https://www.inquest.org.uk/andrew-mccleary-inquest
Inquest and civil claim arising from death of Shane Bryant – represented Shane’s family, again with Elliot Bannister – secured a jury conclusion that failings in how the initially lawful restraint of Shane was conducted contributed to his death. Also secured substantial settlement in subsequent civil claim. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/oct/26/restraint-probably-contributed-to-death-of-black-man-in-leicester-jury-finds
Inquest into the shooting of DJ – represented relatives of DJ shot by armed police. The jury at the inquest found there were failings in the police operation that could have affected the outcome of the incident.
Domestic homicides following state failures to address risk of violence from known perpetrator
Represented the family of Colette Lynch, who was killed by her psychotic partner. This was the first case to result in 1) a public police disciplinary hearing and 2) an inquest following the criminal case, to consider the contributory failings of public authorities, on the grounds this was required by Article 2 of the ECHR. The jury found a series of failings by police, social services and mental health services contributed to the death. Successful civil claims were then brought against all three authorities.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7083792.stm
Represented the family of Maria Stubbings, who was killed by her former partner Marc Chivers. A series of police failings were found by the inquest jury to have contributed to her murder. Essex police admitted liability in relation to a violation of Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Thought to be first case involving failures to prevent domestic homicide in which liability under the Human Rights Act was admitted.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-essex-29611921
Represented the family of Angela Best, who was killed by Theodore Johnson, who had killed two previous women. Coroner concluded that Angela would ‘probably’ be alive if identified steps had been taken by authorities. The Ministry of Justice settled substantial civil claims for Angela’s mother and children.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-57349028
Also represented:
- The family of Rachael and Auden Slack https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-derbyshire-41360273
- The family of Suzanne Van Hagen https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/oct/05/uk-police-lip-service-protecting-women-says-father-of-abuse-victim
Fatal shootings by civilians following individual and/or systems failings regarding gun licensing
Inquest and related civil claims arising from the shooting of Christine and Lucy Lee by John Lowe. Lowe used shotguns that had been removed by Surrey police firearms licensing department after John Lowe threatened to kill SB, but which were then returned without the checks required by the force’s own policy and by national guidelines.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-surrey-48722616
Shootings in Plymouth by Jake Davison –represents the brother and father of two of the deceased in ongoing civil claims against Chief Constable of Devon & Cornwall police in relation to gross failings in relation to the management of Jake Davison’s shotgun license.
Race discrimination in the criminal justice system
Kings Cross Three
Represents three Black women in relation to the police and CPS response to a racist incident on the London Underground. The women were denied criminal justice in relation to the abuse and assault on them, but were themselves prosecuted as the perpetrators, including of racism against a police officer, after they expressed concern about police inaction at the scene and explained their mistrust of ‘white police officers’.
Osime Brown
Represents – with colleagues Clare Hayes, Lana Adamou and Bharine Kalsi – a Black autistic man who has faced multiple systemic and individual failures, discrimination and human rights abuses from the education system, social services, the immigration system and the criminal justice system. The team has worked very closely with Osime’s indefatigable mother, who has fought a fearless battle for justice for her son. They have also worked collaboratively with solicitors from other disciplines, given the multiple issues in the case: with Wilsons (dealing with Osime’s immigration case) and with Commons (dealing with Osime’s criminal appeal). A successful claim has been brought against the Ministry of Justice in relation to Osime’s discriminatory treatment in prison. Other cases are ongoing. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/sep/29/osime-brown-deportation-uk-racist-justice-system-autistic-black-jamaica
Disability discrimination
R (AP and MP) v HM Coroner for Worcestershire Represented family of Adrian Palmer, a young autistic man killed by a man whom he had reported to the police for rape. A claim for judicial review was denied in relation to the coroner’s refusal to resume the inquest touching Adrian’s death, so that failings of the police and social services in relation to their safeguarding duties could be explored. However the judgment of Hickinbottom J, as he then was, established the article 2 threshold for inquests touching deaths involving contributory state failings. The family’s civil claim was subsequently settled by the local authority.
A v Home Office – successful claim by Muslim prisoner for race discrimination. The claim concerned sustained discriminatory treatment and victimisation for an articulate inmate who fought for the rights of other Muslim prisoners. He secured compensation, an apology and meetings with prison officials to air his grievances and see that lessons were learned.
J v Home Office – successful claim by vulnerable autistic man remanded in custody who was raped in prison. The claimant secured compensation, a detailed apology and a meeting between senior prison staff and his mother, who was his litigation friend, to discuss the lessons had been learned and changes that had been implemented as a result of the case.
Interventions
M v Chief Constable Gwent Police and Chief Constable South Wales police – represented Refuge and Liberty as interveners in the Supreme Court in a challenge inter alia to the police immunity from suit in negligence.
DSD v Commissioner of Metropolitan Police – represented a group of women’s organisations as interveners in the Supreme Court, in this landmark case about police accountability for failings in relation to serial sex offender John Warboys.
R(NXT) v Secretary of State for the Home Department – represented the Children’s Commissioner as intervener in a successful judicial review concerning the duty to safeguard the welfare of children in immigration detention.
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