Ramya Nagesh

Ramya is ranked as a leading junior for inquests and inquiries by Legal 500.

She has acted in the widest range of inquests: from those lasting less than a day where she is the only advocate, up to those of the greatest public interest. She has represented a range of interested persons including the bereaved families, individuals and organisations. Key cases include:

• Inquest into the 2019 terror attacks at the Fishmonger’s Hall, acting for the bereaved family;

• Article 2 inquest into the death of a man whilst being arrested, acting for an arresting officer;

• Inquest into the killing of one man by another, in which the key issue was the mental health of the perpetrator, acting for the nurse who assessed the perpetrator shortly before the attack;

• Inquest into the death of a young doctor who was found drowned in the sea after a social night, representing the bereaved family;

• Inquest into the death of a vulnerable young woman found dead in her home, representing the Metropolitan Police Service;

• Hillsborough Inquest, part of the team representing an organisation.

Ramya is the author of the book A Practical Guide to the Law in Relation to Inquests, published in December 2023.

Ramya has also acted in a number of public inquiries, both as part of the Inquiry team and as a Core Participant:

• Covid Inquiry as Senior Counsel to the Inquiry;

• Undercover Policing Inquiry as Senior Counsel to the Inquiry;

• Post Office Inquiry as a member of the counsel team acting for a Core Participant;

• Grenfell Inquiry as a member of the counsel team acting for a Core Participant;

• Jersey Care Home Abuse Inquiry as a member of the counsel team acting for a Core Participant

Ramya has acted in a wide number of professional discipline and regulatory proceedings, acting for the regulator and for the individual professional. These include:

• Acting for a police officer accused of dishonesty offences, for whom she successfully argued to overturn his dismissal on appeal to the Police Appeals Tribunal;

• Acting for a police officer accused of using racist language;

• Acting for the regulator in proceedings where a paramedic was said to have breached numerous professional duties in his care of a particular patient;

• Acting for a nurse in proceedings where she was said to have breached a number of duties in her care of various patients.

Ramya has eleven years’ experience acting in the broadest range of criminal cases, including business crime. She has undertaken regular secondments with Peters & Peters, specialists in business crime. She has also undertaken review work with the Serious Fraud Office. Before joining the Bar, Ramya spent close to a year as a paralegal at Corker Binning. Particular cases in which she has been involved include:

• A large-scale prosecution of individuals at Barclays’ Bank relating to interactions with UAE clients;

• A large-scale prosecution of individuals accused of fraud in relation to SERCO;

• An alleged carbon-credit fraud with international reach.

Ramya has acted in various public law cases, particularly those where her criminal law expertise has come in useful. She has, for example, undertaken a number of Parole Board hearings representing prisoners subject to indeterminate sentences. She has also been instructed in Judicial Review proceedings involving prison conditions.

Ramya has a particular interest in matters involving human rights and civil liberties, and pursues this interest outside of Chambers too. For example, she sits on the roster of experts for Girls Human Rights Hub, is a trustee of the non-profit charity Justice Is Now, sits on the West Midlands Hate Crime Scrutiny Panel and is a representative on the Bar Council’s Taskforce tackling religious discrimination. She has written a number of articles about human rights decisions and about hate crime, and is the author of A Practical Guide to the Law in Relation to Hate Crime, published in 2020.

Before coming to the Bar Ramya worked over several years in the field of human rights, primarily for non-profit organisations. These included working with a grassroots human rights organization in Bangalore, India, a placement with the Kuridsh Human Rights Project in London, a six-month placement at the International Criminal Court in The Hague and six months working for the International Criminal Law Network in The Hague.

She also gained a Masters in Human Rights from the London School of Economics in 2011.