Charles Prior

Charles Prior specialises in Civil Litigation (with a particular focus upon Administrative Law), and Employment Law.

Charles acts for Claimants and Defendants, such as local authorities, in areas of public law including education, mental health and community care.  His Judicial Review experience includes cases relating to school exclusion decisions and prisoners rights, such as:

·    R v Independent Appeal Panel of Sefton BC ex parte B [2002] ELR 676 - the judicial review of a decision not to exclude permanently a pupil guilty of violence to another pupil so that the violent pupil could sit exams on their school premises;

·    R (Cooper) v HM Prison Service [2005] EWHC 1715 the judicial review of prisoner's rights regarding classification, access to a personal computer, and the opening of privileged post.

Charles has particular experience of cases where regulatory law and private law overlap, including cases involving the overlap between the family court declaring the best interests of an incapacitated person and the administrative court supervising decisions on an incapacitated person's welfare; and cases involving referrals to public bodies, such as to the minister of health about the ordinary residence of a person requiring care.

This experience also includes private law action concerning the excercise of public functions - for instance:

·    X v Liverpool City Council and Chief Constable of Merseyside [2006] 1 WLR 375 [Court of Appeal] - the issue being the obtaining and executing of an Emergency Protection Order for the removal of children.

In preparation for the Administrative Court opening in Manchester in 2009 Charles attended the course of Administrative Court Procedures seminars carried out by Brian Thompson of Liverpool University Law School at Atlantic Chambers in 2008.

Charles is interested in developing his Judicial Review practice further in education, mental health and community care, and into related areas of public law.