Direct Access Barrister
Nora Nanayakkara
Direct Access Barrister
Nora Nanayakkara
Nora retrained as a criminal barrister following a career in corporate governance and professional regulation. She has a busy criminal practice as a trial advocate and provides a professional and approachable service to clients.
Area of Law
Crime
Nora is regularly instructed in the Crown Court, Magistrates’ Court and Youth Court. She has experience in allegations ranging from violent and sexual offences to drugs and dishonesty offences. She also has experience of protest-related offences.
Nora has represented clients in trademark infringement and planning enforcement proceedings as well as in private hire/taxi licence appeals.
Often instructed to represent clients charged with road traffic offences, she has a strong track record in advancing technical arguments including special reasons and exceptional hardship to help clients retain their driving licences, including on appeal to the Crown Court. Her representations to prosecuting authorities have been successful in having dangerous driving charges reduced to careless driving and she has considerable experience representing clients who have been charged with failure to provide offences.
Professional Discipline
Before retraining as a criminal barrister, Nora was a Chair of fitness to practise panels at the General Dental Council (GDC) and General Osteopathic Council (GOsC) and served on the Regulatory Board at the Association of Chartered Certified Accountants (ACCA). She has also conducted cases before the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) and Social Work England.
Having chaired hundreds of fitness to practise hearings, Nora can apply her insight into how regulators present their cases and how panels approach their decision-making to the benefit of registered professionals facing interim or substantive regulatory proceedings.
What sort of work do I do?
Nora welcomes direct access instructions on a range of matters but particularly from clients facing prosecution for road traffic/driving offences, allegations brought by their professional regulator or prosecution by local authorities in the criminal courts, including for example fraud, planning and trademark enforcement.
For criminal matters, Nora offers:
- advice, drafting of documents and representation at Court hearings;
- written representations to prosecuting authorities to seek early resolution or to narrow the issues;
- advice on, drafting of and representation at appeals to the Crown Court against conviction or sentence from the Magistrates’ Court and applications for permission to appeal to the Court of Appeal (Criminal Division).
For regulatory and professional discipline matters, Nora offers
- representation from the early stages of referral to a professional regulator to the final substantive hearing before the relevant practice or health committee;
- drafting of appropriate submissions at each stage of the process;
- advice on and drafting of appeals.