Jonathan Wall

Partner - Non Solicitor

Jonathan joined Burton Copeland Solicitors in 1990 and has since developed a career spanning more than 25 years in criminal law. Over that time, he has worked across all stages of case preparation, building extensive expertise and earning a strong reputation for his work in the field.

He now focuses on serious and complex criminal matters, including large-scale fraud, robbery, and drug conspiracies. He has also achieved notable success defending clients in complex murder cases. In recent years, he has been heavily involved in high-profile historic sexual offences cases, particularly those arising following investigations such as Operation Yewtree and related inquiries.

Jonathan has a particular interest in cases involving false allegations, where he is driven by a commitment to achieving justice. He is known for taking a meticulous and investigative approach to defence work, carefully examining prosecution evidence, ensuring full disclosure, and actively gathering material to support his clients’ cases. His work often involves scrutinising both the evidence and the credibility of allegations to ensure a fair trial.

His extensive experience in criminal law and disclosure issues has contributed to successful outcomes across a wide range of matters, including proceedings under the Proceeds of Crime Act (POCA), challenges to Sexual Offences Prevention Orders and Serious Crime Prevention Orders, and representing interested parties at inquests.

Jonathan’s expertise has been consistently recognised by The Legal 500, where he has been named a “Key Figure” since 2016, with particular acknowledgment of his work in historic sexual abuse and sexual offence cases. In 2017, he was awarded “Paralegal of the Year” at the Manchester Legal Awards. The following year, he became a partner at Burton Copeland—becoming the first non-solicitor to achieve partnership status in the firm’s history. Within a year, he was shortlisted for “Partner of the Year” at the same awards.

He is also a regular contributor to legal publications, writing articles and blog posts for Burton Copeland and the Law Society’s Messenger, including features on its front page.

Case Studies:

Blackpool Business Man Cleared of Large Fraud Conspiracy

Contact

To contact Jonathan click here to email him direct or call him on 0161 827 9500 or 07789 651334

Notable Cases

• Inquiry into the Grenfell Tower Fire – Jonathan heads a team of five lawyers who have been instructed by the Fire Officers Association who offer representation, help, assistance and guidance for members in particular the Fire Sector Commander who was inside the building and directing operations for the majority of the incident. Jonathan instructed Louis Browne Queens Counsel and co-authored final written submissions at the conclusion of phase 1 of the inquiry which focused on the events on the night of the fire and the emergency response. The inquiry continues.

• Independent Inquiry into Child Abuse – Jonathan was instructed by a witness to the inquiry to prepare submissions to the panel in support of his evidence which was was in direct conflict to that another witness, Richard Farnell, the former leader of Rochdale Council. Jonathan prepared detailed submissions to the inquiry setting out why the evidence of his client should be preferred over that of Mr Farnell. The inquiry later published a report in which it confirmed that it had “carefully considered all the evidence referred to within the letter in reaching our conclusion on this issue” and that the letter “sets out in great detail why, in effect, we should favour [their clients evidence over that of Farnell]”. The conclusion in the report is that “Mr Farnell lied to the Inquiry in the course of his evidence”. Shortly after the publication of the report it was reported that the Metropolitan Police Service were to investigate Mr Farnell for perjury.

• Inquests into the Hillsborough Stadium Disaster. – Commencing on the 31st March 2014 and finishing on 26th April 2016 the inquest made legal history by being the longest ever legal tribunal ever to have taken place.

  Alongside two other partners, Jonathan headed a team overseeing 25 other lawyers representing several clients nominated as interested parties by the Coroner, Lord Justice Goldring.

  “Our clients were granted properly interested party status only a few months before the hearing began which meant that we had to set up a team and systems extremely quickly and ensure that we worked as efficiently, yet methodically as possible, ensuring that our clients received the best representation”

  The case involved over a million pages of evidence, thousands of hours of CCTV and media footage as well as complex medical, pathology and survivability issues.

• R v L– successfully defended in a large scale multi handed alleged gang murder. The case was one of the first of its kind as it involved hundreds of hours of CCTV footage which had been viewed by police officers who then supplied viewing logs giving their opinion as to what the footage showed. The Crown sought to establish that the police officers were “experts”. The footage was of poor quality and we disputed the interpretation of the police officers as to what the footage showed and instructed a former RAF officer and expert of 20 years in imagery who enhanced the footage and demonstrated to the jury that the object the police had interpreted to be a weapon was in fact an artefact [a trick of the light which was not actually there]. The defendant was acquitted of murder.

• R v H– large scale Trading Standard prosecution collapsed following the submissions made on behalf of a Blackpool businessman who was accused alongside his staff of conspiracy to defraud. Burton Copeland led the successful legal arguments in relation to the prosecution failing to examine telephone recordings which were seized by trading standards offices when his business was raided which the defence maintained would prove that the prosecution assertions that customers had been duped were clearly wrong. All defendants were acquitted. Press Coverage

• R v L– defended in what was then the largest importation of class ‘A’ drugs into the United Kingdom. The case involved complex issues of law relating to a participating police informant (often referred to as “supergrass”) , telephone and cell siting evidence and also evidence from other overseas prosecuting authorities in the Netherlands, France and Belgium.

• R v McGarry– Represented from police interview, magistrates court through to Crown Court trial and then to an appeal to the Court of Appeal, in what was one of the first prepared statement cases given during a police interview. Despite the trial judge indicating that it was for the jury decide on what inference to hold, the Court of Appeal disagreed indicating that the statement prepared by Jonathan fulfilled all the statutory requirements and that the judge was wrong in his direction to the jury. The case led to the “McGarry direction” still being used in criminal courts on a daily basis throughout the UK.