Experience

Errol brings to practice a vast amount of experience and “know how” for the benefit of clients and chambers.  His current practice is mainly Family Law, representing parents in Care Proceedings and Private Law Family Applications.

Errol has an International Law Practice and has advised and represented clients in such matters as State Immunity apart from his outstanding success at Crown Court trials, Errol has appeared at Coroners Inquests for families.

He has also delivered work as a Committee member of INQUEST in the period when there were many unexplained deaths in Police custody and organised a joint meeting between Anti-Slavery Society and INQUEST to draw concern about the Australian’s Government failure to protect Aborigines who were perishing in custody.

Campaigning with INQUEST for legal aid to be granted to bereaved families, he would like to see this as an important human right and adopted internationally as part of a United Nation Declaration and norm that the state provides to bereaved families to support “the right to life”.

Errol also accepts Direct Public Access clients.  He is an Attorney at Law, Notary Royal and member of the bar in St. Lucia and holds a current practising certificate he is able to represent clients in the Caribbean.

Errol is also a “Retired UNISON Shop Steward”  and will represent Trade Union members at Disciplinary and Grievance Proceedings.

For further information please contact clerks in Chambers on 0207 978 8482 or via email info@claphamlawchambers.co.uk

Success and Passions

 As a Local Authority Lawyer he represented the Council in Care and Adoption Proceedings and established over 80% success rate in prosecution for Food Hygiene, Environmental Protection, Weights and Measures, Planning Enforcement and Housing Act prosecutions.

Errol’s most recent success was in the High Court in a Family Case under the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985 in which he argued successfully, before the Court that it would be intolerable to send a child and her parent, outside the jurisdiction, despite the protection afforded by 1980 Hague Convention on the Civil aspects of International Child Abduction.  This is reported (2018) EWHC 514 (Fam).

One noteworthy case that Errol Reid appeared in the lower court and prepared affidavits for the divisional court, is the case of R v Thames Metropolitan Stipendiary Magistrates ex parte London Borough of Hackney reported in 1992 Local Government Law 39, the Divisional Court held that food hygiene offences are continuing offences, committed a fresh each day that the regulation is not complied with by the offender.

Errol Reid’s passion is Human Rights and International Law; he was one of the first batch of students to be awarded the LLM in International Human Rights Law at the University of Essex established by Professor Malcolm Shaw.  He is a former member of the Human Rights network, Justice, Amnesty International and one of the founding members of Interights (The International Legal Centre) and also Executive Committee Member and a Director.

He was a Committee member of INQUEST and was a Committee member and Trustee of Anti-Slavery Society and Anti-Slavery International, also a Chair of the Publications Sub-Committee.  He is one of the founding members and current Chair of the Non-Governmental Organisation the International Society of African Lawyers and Editor of the African Journal of International Law and Political Science which will be published this October 2021.

He has campaigned and organised meetings to protect Aborigines in Australia, Slavery in Sudan and West Papua and Child Soldiers in Africa.  Between 2004 and 2006 he was an Independent Member of the Educational Admission and Exclusion Committee Panel for London Borough of Haringey.  Elected as Councillor in 2006-2014, he was Chair of the Area Committee and Area Forum for the Crouch End, Hornsey and Stroud Green and served on Licensing, Planning and Standards Committee and a number of other Committees while a Councillor.

Hobbies and Interests

Errol is committed to access to justice and is a campaigner for more legal aid for litigants especially families of the bereaved in inquests.  He is a keen cricketer, loves and writes poetry, drama and theatre.  He is a regular church goer and is active in the church.

Contact: errol@claphamlawchambers.co.uk