POCA, legal aid and the risks of blaming your lawyers

October 16, 2026

Cameron Brown KC writes for New Law Journal on POCA, legal aid and the risks of blaming your lawyers

In his latest piece for New Law Journal, Cameron Brown KC examines the Court of Appeal decision in R v Grochiatskij and another [2026] EWCA Crim 387 and what it means for defendants seeking to change legal teams during confiscation proceedings. In the piece he examines how:

Making unsupported complaints against a former legal team may lead the court to refuse a legal aid transfer or revoke legal aid altogether.
Courts can lawfully conduct POCA confiscation hearings without defence representation if the lack of lawyers is a result of the defendant’s own actions.
Defendants have no automatic right to swap legal teams at public expense, nor can they force prosecutors into endless new investigations during confiscation proceedings.

Cameron Brown KC is a Business Crime barrister and provided written submissions to the Court of Appeal in the above case. He regularly appears in leading confiscation matters, including as leading counsel in the Supreme Court case of R v Andrewes: https://redlionchambers.co.uk/barrister/cameron-brown-kc/

Read the full article here