Louise Oakley acts for the prosecution in case that makes legal history

Louise Oakley, led by Tom Little QC, prosecuted Michael Weir at the Central Criminal Court for two separate murders committed in 1998 of Leonard Harris and Rose Seferian.

Michael Weir was originally convicted in July 1999 of the murder of Leonard Harris. That conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal in 2000 on the basis that a DNA profile on the DNA database used for comparative purposes should not have been retained.

In 2017 a match was found between Weir’s palm print at the Seferian crime scene. That in turn led to a reinvestigation of the Harris murder where it was discovered that a palm print inside the Harris’s home address matched Weir and advances in DNA meant that new DNA evidence was also found.
The Court of Appeal quashed the acquittal and ordered a retrial which concluded in the conviction of Weir for both murders.

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