Joseph Hart

Year of Call: 2000, Inner Temple

Joe hart
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Joseph Hart both prosecutes and defends. He is a grade 4 CPS prosecutor and member of the specialist rape panel. His practice, however, is predominantly defence work. 

Joseph Hart was recently successful in his application to be included on the government's national list of special regulatory advocates in Health and Safety and Environmental law.

Since joining chambers in 2000, Joseph Hart has been practising in all areas of crime, regulatory crime and associated regulatory areas such as professional discipline and inquests. He has a growing licensing practice. Alongside a successful Crown Court practice in general crime Joseph regularly acts for Defendants in Health and Safety prosecutions in incidents involving death. This recently includes the prosecution of individuals and companies for breaches of regulations including fire safety. He regularly acts for prisoners in prison law matters. Specialising in particular in parole hearings.

Professional Discipline

In professional discipline cases Joseph has acted before the GMC in both FTP and IOP hearings; before the GDC; advised in cases before the General Pharmaceutical Council and appeared at university disciplinary hearings, and has represented Doctors and other professionals accused of falsifying references, poor performance, sexual misconduct and other egregious behavior.

Joseph’s background in traditional criminal work means that he provides robust trial focused advice and quick thinking to the most complex regulatory cases.

Crime

In crime Joseph’s practice includes all areas of fraud and financial crime, particularly money laundering; EBay fraud; frauds involving the infringement of copyright legislation and conspiracy to commit fraud. His clients have included professional people. This background in financial crime ideally places Joseph in the high value Proceeds of Crime Act work that he undertakes irrespective of whether that arises from civil or criminal proceedings. He advises and acts at all stages of PoCA proceedings to maintain a balanced tactical approach to confiscation proceedings.

Joseph also specialises in people trafficking offences; having acted as junior, led junior, and more recently leading junior in a number of complex multi-handed people trafficking cases. He regularly acts in cases involving firearms; all degrees of sexual offences and offences of violence up to and including murder. Joseph continues to provide specialist advocacy in prison law matters particularly in respect of those serving indeterminate sentences.

Joseph has acted as locum Crown Counsel to the Government of St Helena, in the South Atlantic. During his time on the island he prosecuted a number of serious sex cases involving very young victims. Recently he was briefed to return to the island to prosecute a high profile case involving a serving police officer. Joseph is an Advocate of the Supreme Court of St Helena and is a member of the St Helena and Ascension Legal Support Panel.

Joseph has also prosecuted serious sexual cases on the Falkland Islands and is keen to continue and expand his overseas practice.

He maintains a keen interest in complex road traffic cases and has acted in a number of cases involving high profile individuals.

Environmental

Whilst his practice is mainly defence, Joseph has regularly prosecuted for the Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs, Manchester City Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council, United Utilities, Lancashire Fire and Rescue. 

Joseph acts regularly for the Defence in cases involving allegations of environmental crime and brings his experience of jury-based advocacy to an area of law often dominated by advocates who lack Crown Court experience. He deals with a high volume of these cases and also ones with significant local interest. He defends in environmental prosecutions with associated high-value PoCA applications. Increasingly acting in waste management cases of the utmost seriousness.

Inquests

Joseph has conducted a large number of inquests arising out of fatal road traffic accidents and accidents at work, on behalf of Insurance companies as well as Local Authorities. These have included the Spinnigfields Bridge Inquest and the high profile Grayrigg Derailment Inquest.

Joseph Hart is a member of the institute of licensing and acts in licensing matters at all levels.

Joseph Hart regularly lectures in chambers; to solicitors’ firms; to prosecuting authorities, and to specific interest groups. He also teaches on the Bar Vocational Course in Manchester, and is involved in advocacy training through his Inn (Inner). He has acted as a legal advisor to television series, and has appeared on current affairs programmes in his professional capacity.

Joseph has knowledge of both French and Italian legal systems and speaks Italian and French fluently; and basic German and Russian. Joseph regularly attends the International Bar Association Conferences and was recently selected to be a member of the Bar Council’s 2012 trade delegation to China.

Regulatory

In the regulatory work which he undertakes he is involved from an early stage and accepts instructions in inquests, particularly where there are issues of health and safety offences and questions of professional discipline.

He has an expanding practice in the area of fire safety law, which is a relatively new area of regulatory law.

'He is intuitive about cases and adapts to client needs with an instinctive knowledge of what needs to be done to get the best outcome.'

Legal 500, 2026

Notable Cases

  • R v Mohammed Isaq and Haslington Hall Ltd

    Health and Safety

    Joseph Hart prosecuted in the case which resulted one of the longest sentences imposed under the Fire Safety Order. It was significant in many respects, both in terms of the degree of culpability, the extent of commercial involvement of the Defendants and the unsuccessful legal challenges to the Prosecution. It represents a successful six-year long enforcement regime for Cheshire Fire and Rescue Service. Counsel and solicitors were involved from the earliest stage to advise in this difficult case.

    Counsel was instructed by Warren Spencer of Blackhurst Budd, a leading fire safety specialist.

    MEN News Article

  • Inquest into the Death of P

    Inquest

    Represented the security firm in an inquest where the deceased had died from a subdural haematoma. The deceased was a vulnerable patient at Trafford hospital, suffering from the chronic withdrawal from alcohol. There were allegations that the security had behaved inappropriately and there was an allegation of an assault.

    MEN News Article

    Mirror Article

  • R -v- Dardai and others

    Crime

    A family of Hungarian Nationals were convicted of a trafficking two girls within the United Kingdom for the purpose of having them employed as sex workers. Counsel for the defence.

    Daily Mail Article

  • Merseyside Fire & Rescue Authority -V- J

    Health and Safety

    Serious breaches of fire safety legislation result in significant custodial sentences for restauranteur who “hid” workers behind a false wall in room which could have proved to be a fatal trap if there had been a fire.

    Liverpool Echo Article

    BBC Article

    Mirror Article

  • GMFRS -V- Oasis Lounge Manchester Ltd & Others

    Health and Safety

    Custodial sentences for the managers of shisha lounge who failed to heed GMFRS prohibition notices putting 100’s of customers at risk.

    BBC Article

    ITV News Article

  • Regina -v- Alexne Breier

    Crime

    This case involved the operation of a prostitution business in the UK from November 2012 to March 2014. This was a business, set up, controlled and operated by a large Hungarian family, for their benefit financially. To support the business the Defendant Brier brought young women from Hungary into the UK to work as prostitutes. He was responsible for moving them to several premises in Oldham, Manchester, Bolton and Blackburn and at / from these premises he controlled their prostitution. His family were involved in the running of the brothels where the girls worked.

    BBC News Article

    Lancashire Telegraph Article

    Manchester Evening News Article

    Daily Mail Article

  • HSE -v- B

    Health and Safety

    Joseph Hart and Nicholas Courtney (instructed by Greenwoods, London) secured a conditional discharge for the Defendant company (a charity), who pleaded guilty to a Section 3 HASAWA offence arising out of a serious injury to a pupil at their special school. The prosecution resulted from the traumatic amputation of the boy’s index finger on the sixth day of operation of a newly built school, but the Trafford Magistrates accepted that the combination of the company’s general highly positive attitude to health and safety, its positive good character and the uses to which any financial penalty would otherwise be put, allowed them to draw back from the financial penalty that would usually follow in such a case.

  • GMC -v- Dr K

    Professional Disipline

    Case involving allegations of false references from the Lebanon. Evidence had to be sought from Doctors in Beirut. There were allegations of sectarian bias and political corruption.

  • Regina -v- Gareth Curtis

    Murder

    Led junior for defence in Manchester gangland shooting.

  • GMC -v- Dr W

    Professional Discipline

    Case involving allegations of poor performance, there was significant conflicting expert evidence as the Dr’s training had been carried out in the USA to different standards.

  • DEFRA -V- Smith and Smith

    Environmental

    Case involving the failure to correctly “tag” and identify cattle. First case of its type to result in a custodial sentence. Counsel for the Prosecution.

  • Regina -v- Rodrigues

    Environmental Law

    A case involving a waste management company that had been dumping waste into the public sewer. Factually the case was relatively straightforward but the PoCA was complex and involved initial benefit figures of many hundreds of thousands of pounds. Counsel for the Defence.

  • Regina -v- Hekmat Kaveh

    Environmental Law

    One of the first prosecutions nationally of a school for breaches of fire safety regulations. A significant case involving a boarding school. Counsel for the Prosecution.

  • Manchester City Council -V- Bangi

    Health and Safety

    Case involving allegations of unfit premises for food preparation. Counsel for the Prosecution.

  • Regina -v- Pamela Tickle

    Fraud

    Led junior in large scale NHS fraud in chain of optician shops, involving sums in excess of £1 million.

  • Grayrigg Rail Crash Inquest

    Inquest

    A high profile inquest involving the derailment of a passenger train on the West Coast Mainline.

  • HSE -V- Priory Hospitals

    Health and Safety

    Case involving a fall from an insecure window in a secure unit for the mentally disordered. Counsel for the Defence.

  • Regina -V- McGrath and Others

    Rape

    A case involving multi-count, multi victim historic rape Counsel for the Defence.

  • Regina -V- ONeil

    Sexual Offences

    Case involving allegations of indecent assault by a former monk. Counsel for the Defence.

  • Regina -V- Nolan

    Crime

    Case involving serious attacks on elderly victims; Defendant fulfilling the criteria for a mandatory life sentence. Counsel for the Defence.

  • Salford City Council -V- Display Marketing Group

    Trading Standards

    Case involving allegations of dangerous products being put up for sale. Counsel for the Defence.

  • Cornwall County Council V- Manton

    Fraud

    Case involving misleading representation by a national care finance company. Counsel for the Defence.

  • Regina V- Imre Orsos

    Crime

    Case alleging the illegal trafficking into the UK of women to work as prostitutes and the rape of those women. Leading Junior for the Defence.

  • Regina v- Ladislav Kaco

    People Trafficking

    Case involving a conspiracy to traffic sex workers into the UK. Led Junior for the Defence.

  • Regina -v- Nicholas Danby

    Health and Safety

    Case of breaches of fire safety regulations which led to the death of a hotel resident. Counsel for the Prosecution.

  • Regina v- Excavation and Contracting Ltd

    Health and Safety

    Fatal accident on a large publicly funded building project. Counsel for the Defence.

  • Regina v- Michael Cheetham

    Murder

    Murder involving complex issues of causation. Led Junior for the Defence.

  • Regina v- Mohammed Atif

    Rape

    Case involving allegations of gang rape of an under-aged girl. Counsel for the Defence.

  • Regina v- Norman Williams

    Trading Standards

    Case involving a factory scale production of counterfeit designer pottery. Counsel for the Prosecution.

  • Regina v- Peter Kemp and Others

    Fraud

    Case involving a charity tele-marketing fraud, whereby thousands of businesses were fraudulently induced to sponsor a bogus drugs charity. The largest Trading Standards prosecution of its kind. Led Junior for the Prosecution.

  • Regina v- Wayne Jackson and Others

    Murder

    Case involving a serious violent disorder during which someone was killed on St George’s day, there were more than ten Defendants. Counsel for the Defence.

  • Attorney-General of St Helena -V- Terrence Crowie

    Sexual Offences

    Case involving the grooming and subsequent assault of a young girl within a small island community. Counsel for the Prosecution.

  • Attorney-General of St Helena -V- Patrick Henry

    Sexual Offences

    Case involving the misconduct of a Police Officer who used his position to bully women into sex within a small island community. Counsel for the Prosecution

  • Attorney-General of the Falkland Islands V- Simon Reid

    Sexual Offences

    Case involving the grooming of young school girls and the making of indecent images of school girls. 4 victims. Counsel for the Prosecution.

  • Regina V- Liam Wiper

    Conspiracy to Supply Drugs

    A multi-handed case involving the organization of a widespread conspiracy to supply the city of Lancaster with class A drugs.

Appointments

  • Recorder (Crime, South Eastern Circuit) 2022
  • Assistant Coroner for Liverpool and the Wirral
  • CPS Advocates Panel - Cat 4 (R)
  • Approved Counsel for the Falkland Islands
  • List of Specialist Regulatory Advocates in Health and Safety and Environmental Law (List B)
  • Governing Bencher of the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple

Professional Associations

  • Criminal Bar association
  • Institute of Licensing
  • Young Fraud Lawyers in the North

Education

  • Corpus Christi College Oxford, Paris (Pantheon-ASSAS)
  • MA(Oxon) Jurisprudence and French Law
  • Inns of Court School of Law
  • BVC Qualification