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Head of Serious & General Crime, Jenny Wiltshire, is an expert criminal defence solicitor with deep knowledge and long experience of police investigations into major crimes and the complex trials to which they can lead.
She is recognised as one of the UK’s leading lawyers in her practice areas and has enjoyed a long run of success representing clients facing some of the gravest criminal charges, including murder, manslaughter and serious sexual assaults.
Much of Jenny’s work takes place early in a criminal allegation’s lifetime. She has often achieved positive results for her clients long before the charge stage. This has caused her to be much in demand by high-profile clients seeking swift and discreet resolutions to what, if made public, would be highly damaging allegations. She frequently acts for professional sports people and individuals in the entertainment industry, as well as professionals caught up in the criminal justice system – including doctors, bankers, teachers, lawyers and politicians.
Jenny is one of the country’s foremost experts on sexual assaults (both historic and current). She has successfully represented numerous high-profile and professional individuals in respect of sexual assault allegations. Clients in this area include many professional athletes and celebrities.
The key to Jenny’s success is her ability to unravel complex medical and forensic evidence. She also benefits from an ability to listen and get the best out of her clients. Her case organisation skills and her attention to detail often unearth case-breaking disclosed evidence.
Jenny is a founding member of Women in Criminal Law. She was Vice President of the London Criminal Courts Solicitors Association between 2015 and 2017 and Secretary between 2014 and 2015.
Jenny has long experience representing individuals accused of sexual offences, both historical (i.e. non-recent) and current. She is regularly instructed in relation to #MeToo type allegations, and often as they relate to well-known individuals for whom an unproved allegation made public may prove reputationally devastating.
She has an encyclopaedic knowledge of how the law in this area has evolved and of the defences that apply in historical cases. Disclosure failings in this area are not new. Over many years, Jenny and her team have developed deep expertise in challenging the prosecution’s approach to disclosure and, in doing so, have unearthed case-breaking material.
Jenny is often instructed in the earliest stages of a police investigation. Her long experience operating in this field enables her to determine the best way to approach interviews, and to handle the reputational aspects of any allegation.
Jenny provides a full suite of legal services to individuals facing what is often the greatest challenge of their lives. She works closely with lawyers in the firm’s civil litigation department – and alongside media and reputational legal experts outside the firm – to ensure the adverse impacts of any allegation of criminality is contained as much as possible.
As well as ensuring that any unmerited criminal investigation ends as soon as possible, Jenny and her colleagues’ expertise goes beyond criminal defence to encompass crisis management, media relations and reputational protection.
Jenny’s clients in this area include HNW and high-profile individuals, many of whom work in the sports and entertainment industries. She has also provided reputational advice and representation to leading business figures, politicians and their relatives and other leading professionals
Jenny has represented individuals accused of the most serious crimes, including murder, manslaughter and serious assaults. She frequently represents individuals who find themselves under investigation for less serious – but nonetheless potentially reputationally ruinous – crimes including those connected with drinking and drugs. She has often achieved positive results for her clients in such a way that the allegations remain outside the public domain.
Jenny has enormous experience representing individuals accused of crimes which, while not necessarily the most serious on the statute book, can nonetheless be hugely damaging. These sorts of cases can be hugely impactful as even being a criminal suspect (let alone convicted) can be a career-ending event.
Jenny’s clients in these matters have included celebrities, politicians and other household names, but they are also HNWs and doctors, lawyers and City professionals for whom an allegation of wrongdoing would be reputationally and professionally devastating.
Jenny and her team have enjoyed significant success preventing unmerited allegations of this type from entering the public domain. Often they achieve this by taking decisive action at an early stage by persuading an investigating authority to end its inquiry before the charging stage.
Often working in conjunction with the firm’s civil lawyers, the team has enjoyed significant success containing reputational damage by persuading police to conduct investigations in a way that often avoids the need to arrest and minimises the risk of matters coming into the public domain.
Jenny has brought, and won, some of the most important criminal appeals against conviction over the past two decades. She is expert at unravelling the complex thread of decisions that can lead to a miscarriage of justice, and knows the best strategies to expose this, and get it rectified for good.
16 Dec 2025
In July 2020 the CPS published on its website a document entitled “Rape and Serious Sexual Offences Strategy 2025”, or “RASSO 2025” for short.
With a foreword by the then DPP Max Hill and…
16 Oct 2025
Hickman & Rose’s status as one of the country’s leading law firms has been confirmed in the latest edition of the Chambers & Partners legal directory.
The firm’s Business Crime,…
1 Oct 2025
Hickman & Rose is delighted to announce that two more of its departments have been elevated to the leading Tier 1 category in the latest edition of the Legal 500 directory.
The Business Crime…
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