Phil Barnes KC delivers Crime at Nine breakfast seminar on disclosure

2nd October 2026

Phil Barnes KC delivered the latest Crime at Nine breakfast seminar, “Keeping them honest: a defence lawyer’s guide to dealing with disclosure”.

Phil has worked across the criminal justice system, qualifying as a solicitor in 2005 and a Higher Court Advocate in 2008 before coming to the Bar in 2014. He was appointed a Deputy District Judge (Magistrates’ Courts) in 2017, a Recorder in 2019 and King’s Counsel in 2026.

The session looked at the disclosure regime from a defence perspective, covering:

The purpose of disclosure
The test and the terms: relevant material, prosecution material, served evidence, unused material, revelation and the schedules, and the disclosure test
Disclosure Management Documents
Understanding the schedules
Scrutinising the disclosure test
Defence statements and disclosure requests
Sensitive material
s8 applications
Phones

Phil closed with six key messages:

Know the regime and the language better than they do, and use that knowledge to apply pressure in a reasonable but firm way
Engage early with DMDs: futureproof your case
Identify relevant material not retained, and reasonable lines of inquiry not done. Ask for them to be pursued, then bite when they’re not
Identify missing material from the schedules, then ask the awkward questions
Carefully crafted disclosure requests and s8 applications are far more likely to yield results than an angry “I want”
Don’t be that person the judge can ignore or disregard

Phil also shared his required reading on disclosure: