Stephen Leslie KC was one of the best-known advocates at the criminal Bar, appearing regularly at the Old Bailey where he was a familiar and colourful figure in his waistcoats with pocket watch.
Ebullient and energetic, he had a disorganised air that belied a high level of competence: his shrewd eye for detail, ability to find buried information in a mass of complex documents and, on occasion, a left-field approach, led to a significant practice in serious crime, fraud and regulatory work over 50 years.
Sir Nicholas Hilliard, a High Court judge and former recorder of London, recalled: “He was an exponent of a specialist form of eccentric advocacy rarely seen nowadays. Often in a waistcoat made from the Leslie tartan, he presented as a mixture of Mr Toad, the White Rabbit from Alice and Serjeant Buzfuz from The Pickwick Papers.
“Leslie managed to create an aura of ‘benign chaos’ in the courtroom which — if the judge and prosecutor were not careful — could contribute to his client’s acquittal. His phone went off more often than most — on one occasion, when it was locked in his new briefcase with a combination lock he could not remember, filling the courtroom with the opening bars of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony on repeat.” In reality, Leslie had always prepared his case better than anyone else. “The impression of bewilderment and an inability to understand the allegations was entirely contrived.”
As well as a skill in cross-examining vulnerable witnesses, Leslie became known for his attention to detail and ability to absorb large amounts of technical documentation under pressure. He appeared in various high-profile trials, including lengthy Serious Fraud Office (SFO) cases such as defending the accountant in R v M in 2016, a huge boiler-room fraud involving $100 million and criminal activity spanning four continents.
He defended the only female defendant in the “Hungerford Bridge” murder involving a group of youths who attacked two students on the bridge, resulting in the death of Timothy “Timo” Baxter in 1999. His advocacy was lauded for its sensitivity and technical acumen. More recently he acted for Peter Brooks, the surgeon convicted of attempted murder of a colleague.
In style, the judge Oscar Del Fabbro recalled Leslie’s nervous energy, “always appearing to be in a hurry, scurrying rather than walking, gown billowing behind him” and in court “ready to spring to his feet at any second to make a point or raise objections”. In cases involving several defendants, “he would know everyone else’s case and often intervene, even when not invited”, he said. One prominent silk, exasperated at Leslie’s repeated interruptions, hissed at him audibly to “stop being the resident ferret and shut up”. Leslie “of course took no offence. He never did.”
A ready engager with all kinds of people, Leslie was kind, generous to a fault and a great mentor to young barristers. He also took many cases pro bono, including death row appeals from the West Indies in the privy council, and became the “go-to” counsel for fellow lawyers in appeals over costs. In his latter years, he left private practice in 2014 to join the Public Defender Service, which provides high-level criminal advocacy to defendants on legal aid.
Stephen Windsor Leslie was born of Jewish parents in 1947, the only child of Leonard (Lou) Shevitza and Celia, in Hove, Sussex. His father had fled Poland and chose the name Leslie as sounding English and being pronounceable. He went to school at Brighton College, and his parents, who ran jewellery shops in The Lanes in Brighton, were proud of his being the first member of the family to attend public school.
But the young Stephen found life there difficult: he was regularly beaten, had few friends and was bullied. At the time he put it down to being one of only five Jewish pupils as part of the school’s 4 per cent non-Christian quota. Later he wondered if it was more to do with his irrepressible personality — not the norm in schools then: either way it made him aware of those with minority status and he promoted diversity awareness at the Bar. He was, however, good at sport, running and boxing and keeping a seven-stone featherweight physique, being unbeaten through 79 fights.
There had been rabbis in his family but his household was non-religious after his grandmother declared “there can be no God” because of the deaths the family suffered in the Holocaust. His maternal grandfather managed to escape from Poland, in a coffin using a straw to breathe. But Leslie saw himself as culturally Jewish. He read law at King’s College London and was called to the Bar (Lincoln’s Inn) as a scholar on a Thomas More bursary in 1971, working as a bus conductor to make up any shortfall in the costs of pupillage.
Leslie eloped with Brigid Oldham in 1973 and had two children, Lara and Ophelia. They divorced in 1989 and he married Amrit Mangra, with whom he had a son, Theodore. By 2005 they had separated and he met fellow barrister Melissa Coutinho, a government lawyer and a lifetime vice-president of the Association of Women Barristers. They finally married in 2017: Leslie had been ill and wanted to be sure, as he put it, that they would meet in Heaven. She and his children survive him.
He began as a tenant in the chambers of Leonard Lewis QC at 4 King’s Bench Walk, moving to that of William (Billy) Rees-Davies QC at 5 Paper Buildings. The whole set moved to 1 Crown Office Row under Richard Ferguson QC. Leslie took silk in 1993 and was made a bencher in 2001.
His crime and complex fraud cases included in 1984 a large-scale police corruption case that used undercover tape-recorded evidence for the first time; representing Edward “Fast Eddie” Davenport in a £12 million high-profile SFO fraud (Davenport was convicted in 2011); and defending a UK soldier charged with homicide in Iraq.
Leslie retained great zest for life, in and outside work. In part because of his wife’s faith, he converted to Roman Catholicism: attending church each Sunday, he said, brought him “comfort or peace”. He regularly attended Ascot, and was a member of the Carlton Club and MCC. He adored his dog — a “spoodle” called Lou-Lou — and insisted it came with him where possible on holiday.
He was still in practice when he died in a drowning accident on holiday in Mauritius. He was also midway through writing his memoirs. In these, he reflected on his good fortune, said he never bore grudges and still delighted in such childlike pleasures as finding a perfect conker for his grandchildren or a seashell. “I have not begun to think about what I leave behind,” he wrote, “but I am conscious that I have quietly achieved more than I expected to, if less than I had secretly hoped.”
Stephen Leslie KC, criminal barrister, former chair of CEBA and former leader of the South Eastern Circuit, was born on April 21, 1947. He died in a drowning accident on October 26, 2025, aged 78