• Counter Terrorism Panel (Grade 4)
  • Serious & Organised Crime Panel (Grade 4)
  • Rape & Serious Sexual Offences Panel
  • Recorder of the Crown Court (2018)

  • The Criminal Bar Association

Instructing Adrian Langdale KC

For more information please contact our clerks by calling +44 (0)20 7242 3555.

Adrian Langdale KC is a leading criminal silks and a highly experienced, dynamic and robust advocate.

Adrian has prosecuted and defended in a vast array of high-profile cases over the years. He has a particular expertise and specialism in the areas of Serious Organised Crime, Homicide and Complex Fraud. He is regularly instructed as Leading Counsel in complex heavyweight criminal cases including, multi-handed Murders, Murders with links to Organised Crime, as well as complex cases of homicide, large scale drugs conspiracies and importations, cases involving the use and discharge of firearms and in high profile Sexual offences cases. Adrian also defends in cases of complex and international fraud.

He is well known for his ability to present difficult and complex evidence in a way that is easily digestible and has a razor-sharp understanding of the Law.

What Others have said:

Adrian is particularly well regarded for his “dogged” cross examination of expert and lay witnesses alike, with sources admiring his cross-examination technique and his “ability to ferret anything out of people”.

Chambers & Partners (2022):

“An esteemed silk with expertise on both sides of complex fraud matters. He frequently handles white-collar and organised crime cases, including those relating to drugs conspiracies. He also possesses expertise in relation to cases involving homicide and sexual offences”.

Chambers & Partners (2021):

“Esteemed new silk with expertise on both sides of complex fraud matters. He frequently handles white-collar and organised crime cases, including those relating to drugs conspiracies. He also possesses expertise in relation to cases involving homicide and sexual offences.

Legal 500 (2020):

“A highly talented defence advocate.”

Ranked as a Tier 1 KC (on both the Midlands and London Circuits)

“Adrian is phenomenal in his preparation, presentation and delivery. He works extremely hard, is always fully prepared and is very sharp”

Chambers & Partners (2018)

“With him, it’s a bit like watching Neo in The Matrix. He runs rings around prosecutors and he’s an extremely persuasive advocate who is always one step ahead. It’s like he’s dodging bullets”

“Esteemed advocate with expertise on both sides of complex fraud matters. He also frequently handles white-collar and organised crime cases”

Legal Expertise

Crime & Regulatory

Notable Crime & Regulatory cases

R v Elahi & others (2021)

Successful prosecution (leading Ben Isaacs, 7BR) of one of the country’s most prolific, internet based paedophiles and sexual abusers. Elahi was prosecuted on an Indictment containing 160 counts. The case involved an extensive investigation by the National Crime Agency over a period of 3 years and in excess of 2000 victims/survivors worldwide. Elahi blackmailed a number of individuals into carrying out the most sadistic degrading acts upon themselves and others. He also directed the abuse of a catalogue of young children worldwide, including on two occasions where he directed females on the other side of the world, to sexually abuse babies and other individuals to sexually abuse their own young brothers and sisters. Elahi established his own websites and sold in boxsets, the images of the abuse he had directed and obtained through blackmail, threats and coercion, to other abusers, who in turn often targeted the victims again. Elahi further coached and trained others on how to refine their offending. Through the investigation a string of other paedophiles across the Country, who purchased Elahi’s products were identified and have been Prosecuted separately. Elahi was eventually sentenced to a 40 year extended sentence.

BBC >
Sky News >
Daily Mail >
R v Smith (2021)

Successful prosecution (leading Chris Canning, 7BR) of a man charged with the vicious Murder of Andrew Jackson, who was murdered in his own caravan in the early hours of the morning. The case was built entirely upon a compelling web of circumstantial evidence, which identified this defendant as being the only possible person who could have carried out the Murder. This case involved the presentation and challenge to scientific and forensic evidence relating to the mark left on the body of the deceased by the butt of the gun carried by the defendant that night, the presentation of GNSS technology and its reliability in smart phones and the presentation of complex CCTV evidence and blood spatter forensic evidence. The defendant was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Derby Telegraph >
BBC >
Nottingham Post >
R v Hurt & others (2021)

Successfully defended (leading Rebecca Da Silva, Citadel Chambers) an individual charged alongside three others with a revenge Murder, where all four individuals travelled from Nottingham to Birmingham where the deceased was fatally stabbed. The Jury later acquitted Adrian’s client of murder. The trial involved challenge to the prosecutions CCTV presentation and the admissibility of other prosecution material.

BBC >
BBC >
Evening Standard >
R v Chand & others (2021)

Successful prosecution of 11 members of a gang (leading Jonathan Cox, The 36 Group). The case involved the possession and use of multiple firearms and a large-scale drugs Conspiracy (Class A). The gang at the centre of the case carried and used firearms in order to protect their lucrative drugs empire from rival gangs. As a result, a number of high-profile shootings were carried out in late 2018 and early 2019, following a turf war. The leaders of the Gang boasted about their exploits in a series of “drill” rap videos which charted their criminal progress and in one example attempted to mock the police investigation whilst on remand awaiting trial for these offences. Following conviction, the leading defendants received lengthy periods of both Life Imprisonment and Extended Sentences.

BBC >
ITV >
Daily Mail >
R v Hill (2021)

Successfully defended (leading Waheed Baber, Kenworthy Chambers) a young female charged jointly with Murder after she was implicated in the fatal stabbing of an individual carried out by her partner, in Leicester City Centre. The case involved a challenge to the detailed CCTV analysis presented by the prosecution and responding to a ‘cut-throat’ defence run by the co-defendant. Adrian’s client was subsequently acquitted of Murder.

BBC >
Leicester Mercury >
London Economic >
R v Murray & others (2021)

A complex and lengthy case involving a double shooting in late 2018 at the home address of a local businessman (where a masked gunman approached and shot multiple times through the lounge window into the address) and at a busy city centre club/bar where a passer-by was shot by a masked gunman on a motorbike. Adrian (leading Chris Canning, 7BR) successfully defended one of the leading defendants, against allegations of involvement in the double Conspiracy to Murder. Adrian’s client was found at a police station with the firearm used in the second shooting stored in a package within his underwear. Adrian’s client was later acquitted of both conspiracies to Murder and the alternative conspiracies to Endanger Life. The defence case involved a detailed challenge to forensic evidence presented by the prosecution and the Prosecutions use of telephone evidence, as well as the police investigation.

Nottingham Post >
BBC >
BBC >
R v Brown & others (2020)

Successfully defended an individual who was accused of killing another (with the co-defendant accused of assisting in a cover up) in what was described by the Prosecution as a ‘road rage killing’. The case involved complex pathology and eye-witness evidence and the holding of a voire dire in relation to the propriety of some of the police investigation and police methods and admissibility of evidence obtained from it. Adrian’s client was later acquitted by the jury following a lengthy and complex trial.

BBC >
Nottingham Post >
The Mirror >
R v Joseph Quigley (2020)

Successful prosecution of Joseph Quigley, a high-profile priest within the Catholic Church for his sadistic and historic abuse of a vulnerable child parishioner whom he was tutoring. Quigley at the time of the abuse held a senior and powerful position within the Catholic Church in the UK, as the national education co-ordinator for the Catholic Church (overseeing hundreds of Catholic Schools nationally and carrying out inspections, including directing the program of Sex Education in the wider education system). Questions were raised during the trial as to the extent of the Catholic Churches investigation, knowledge of abuse and the actions taken by the Catholic Church when allegations of abuse had first surfaced in the early 2000’s. Quigley was convicted and is now serving an extended sentence of imprisonment.

BBC >
Birmingham Mail >
LBC >
R v Blackwell (the ‘X-factor Rapist’) (2020)

Successful prosecution of the so called: “X-Factor Rapist”, described by a Sentencing Judge as “Pure Evil”. Blackwell carried out two separate campaigns of Sexual Attacks against vulnerable females, he was linked to a string of historic night-time attacks and knife point rapes against five females in Nuneaton and Birmingham between 1997 and 1998. Blackwell’s DNA was later taken for an allegation in 2020 and following further investigations Blackwell was then linked to a string of further attacks on vulnerable females in the Devon and Cornwall area in the 2000’s, where Blackwell had moved to and at a time when he appeared as a contestant on the ITV show, the ‘X-Factor’. Blackwell is now serving a Life Sentence for his offences.

BBC >
Daily Mail >
The Sun >

Financial Crime

Adrian has been involved in defending in numerous large-scale Frauds and cases involving financial crime, both national and internationally.

Notable Financial Crime cases

R v Ayres & Others (2017)

Representing one of the lead defendants in a large scale multi-million pound international ‘boiler room fraud’.

View case >
R v Christopher Watson (2016)

Representing the company accountant accused of defrauding £7.9 million pounds from one of the businessmen on ‘dragons den’.

View case >
View case >
View case >
R v Wright & Others (2013)

Described as “the country’s largest” “Cash for Crash” frauds, involving a multi-million pound fraud against insurance companies, by the use of fake accidents and exaggerated claims. Representing 1 of only 2 defendants who were acquitted by the jury, out of a total of some 70 defendants, in a series of trials over the course of three years. As a result of the trials a number of the other defendants were later found by the Court of Appeal to have been wrongly convicted and that there had been failures in disclosure by the Prosecution.

View case >
View case >
View case >

  • Counter Terrorism Panel (Grade 4)
  • Serious & Organised Crime Panel (Grade 4)
  • Rape & Serious Sexual Offences Panel
  • Recorder of the Crown Court (2018)

  • The Criminal Bar Association

Instructing Adrian Langdale KC

For more information please contact our clerks by calling +44 (0)20 7242 3555.

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7BR is a leading set with barristers providing expertise and assistance to clients across a broad spectrum of practice areas.