Olivia Gates

Olivia Gates

Crime & Crown Court

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Olivia Gates

Newham House, Middlesbrough

  • About Me

I am a Solicitor in the Crown Court Department.

I studied Master in Law (exempting) degree at Northumbria University and graduated in July 2019 with a 1st class degree.  In September 2019, I began my Training Contract at Watson Woodhouse and qualified as a Solicitor in March 2021. I am both a Duty Solicitor and Accredited Police Station Representative.

I specialise in defending people accused of a crime and gained a wide degree of expertise across the criminal defence spectrum before narrowing the focus of my work towards drug offences and sexual offences.  This has also led to me representing a very wide range of clients.  I have expertise in representing members of our Armed Forces; whether that be at the Police Station or Court Martial. My experience dealing with serving members of the Forces has given me the opportunity to visit a number of foreign countries in which our troops are serving to work with them in theatre.

The casework I have chosen to focus on has brought me into contact with a large amount of Proceeds of Crime Act ‘POCA’ work. In this work, I have secured a number of good results for clients by reducing both the benefit figures and available amounts through the appropriate deployment of forensic accountants and our own in-house team.  This work has also exposed me to defending ‘Minded to Bar’ applications made by the Disclosure and Barring Service. I have successfully made representations persuading the DBS not to include clients on Children and Adults Barred Lists.

Being accused of a criminal offence is often the most challenging time in my clients’ lives. I pride myself in being approachable and available to my clients at all times and endeavour to provide my clients with a personal and professional service, ensuring we work together to obtain the best possible result in their case.

Some of my recent cases include:-

  • R v C – Teesside Crown Court – successfully defended a client accused of rape;
  • R v D – Teesside Crown Court – secured the complete acquittal of a client accused of committing a sustained knife attack
  • R v S – Lincoln Crown Court – successfully defended a client accused of murdering a family member;
  • R v J – Derby Crown Court – defended a client involved in a conspiracy to import £165m of cocaine to a full acquittal
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