Karen Staunton

Karen is regularly instructed in bail, asylum, deport and private immigration matters. She represents clients in appeal hearings in the First and Upper Tier Tribunals, and drafts grounds and advices in the area. She frequently works with victims of trafficking and torture, and in cases where capacity is in issue.

Prior to pupillage, Karen qualified as a Level 2 accredited immigration and asylum senior caseworker. She regularly prepared asylum, trafficking, discretionary leave and bail applications, which were often run alongside complex public law challenges.

Highlights of recent work include:

• HRS v SSHD (UI-2023-004132) – Karen successfully persuaded the Upper Tribunal that the Judge at first instance had incorrectly applied the country guidance case to her client, an Iranian asylum seeker. The Upper Tribunal subsequently re-heard the appeal and granted her client’s appeal.
• KH v SSHD (FTT, 2024) – successful appeal on behalf of a Vietnamese asylum seeker. In addition, to the asylum claim, Karen ran human rights claims on the basis of Articles 3 and 8, given the Appellant’s significant health issues and the private life she had in the UK.
• EL v SSHD (FTT, 2024) – successful appeal on behalf of a male victim of trafficking from Albania. Karen persuaded the Tribunal that there was not sufficient protection or the possibility of internal relocation for EL and that as a male victim of trafficking, he fell within a particular social group for the purposes of the Refugee Convention.
• AK v SSHD (FTT, 2023) – successful appeal of the refusal of the Appellant’s Article 8 human rights claim on the basis of the Appellant’s vulnerability arising from poor health and a lack of support network, set against a background of traumatic experiences in her country of origin.

Since joining Chambers, Karen has been instructed in a number of judicial review cases in the Upper Tribunal and Administrative Court, and false imprisonment claims and prison law human rights cases in the County Court. This included the case of ADL and ors v Secretary of State for the Home Department [2024] EWHC 994 (Admin), which concerned the legality of the imposition of GPS monitoring on four Claimants as conditions of their immigration bail.

While working as a public law caseworker prior to pupillage, Karen worked on a number of high profile public law cases in a variety of courts, including the High Court, Court of Appeal, Supreme Court and the European Court of Human Rights. These included challenges to the legality of the Detained Fast Track Rules, which fast-tracked asylum claims for applicants in immigration detention, and challenges to the time-limit on the support provided by the Home Office to victims of trafficking. A number of these challenges were brought on an urgent basis. Karen also worked on several unlawful detention and false imprisonment cases, and human rights claims.

Karen regularly act in Family Law Act, private children and financial remedy proceedings. Karen also accepts instructions in TOLATA 1996 cases. She has acted at all stages of proceedings, including in multi-day fact findings hearings and final hearings. Karen acted in the case of RM v WP [2024] EWFC 191 (B), in which His Honour Judge Hess confirmed that there can be multiple former matrimonial homes in matrimonial finance proceedings and that the court should steer away from developing a concept of ‘un-matrimonialisation’.

Karen is regularly instructed in the County Court, representing clients in Stage 3 hearings, infant settlement hearings, small claims and fast track trials. She has experience in making relief from sanctions and other applications.

Karen also accepts instruction in landlord and tenant cases, acting for both landlords and tenants in possession and disrepair claims. She appeared for the Respondent in the General Regulatory Chamber in Craig Redmond v Cherwell District Council [2024] UKFTT 444 (GRC), the first published case regarding the enforcement of penalty notices under the Smoke and Carbon Monoxide Alarm (England) Regulations 2015.

During pupillage, Karen shadowed a number of mediations in wills disputes, including Inheritance Act 1975 claims. Karen accepts instruction in this area.

Winner of Landmark Chambers Judicial Review Moot (2020)

Kennedy Scholarship (Lincoln’s Inn, 2019)

Advocacy Award (BPP University, 2019)

Francis Taylor Building Prize in Environmental Law (University of Oxford, 2016)

Martin Wronker Jurisprudence Prize (University of Oxford, 2016)

Charnley Law Prize (Hertford College, University of Oxford, 2016)

First Year Scholarship (Hertford College, University of Oxford, 2014)