Grahame Aldous KC

Grahame Aldous KC is an Associate Member, and previous Head of Chambers, of Deka Chambers. He was recommended as a Leader in the Field for Clinical Negligence, Personal Injury and International Claims in Legal 500 and Chambers & Partners and was made a Senior Fellow of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers for his contributions to Personal Injury Law.

Grahame came to the Bar having graduated in Law from Exeter University in 1978, and was called to the Bar by Inner Temple in 1979. He became a Recorder (part-time judge) in 1999, and took silk (appointed Queen’s Counsel, now King’s Counsel) in 2008. Grahame was elected as a Governing Bencher of Inner Temple (one of the four Inns of Court that call barristers to the Bar) in 2008.

Grahame had previously been at sea on Home Trade ships, sailing traditional working craft and teaching sailing at the National Sailing Centre in Cowes. He kept up his connection with the sea as a MCA/RYA Yachtmaster with regular trips at sea, including racing round Cape Horn in the Whitbread Round the World Yacht Race and sailing as a watch-leader on Square Rigged Sailing Ships adapted to take mixed-ability crews, including wheelchair users. His work included specialisations in catastrophic injury claims, maritime accident claims and claims involving multiple jurisdictions. In 2020 Grahame was awarded a doctorate by King’s College London for his research into the relationship between international law and the Admiralty Court, and the role of the rule of law in the award of naval prize money.

His cross-examination technique has been described in the High Court as ‘a quiet bombshell’, and by an expert witness in the High Court as ‘thorough, effective, but better than that, beautiful’.

Grahame is an Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA) Advanced Advocacy Trainer and Advocacy Teacher-Trainer. He has trained and been a course director for numerous courses run by the Inner Temple and been a Faculty member of the South Eastern Circuit International Advanced Advocacy Course at Keble College, Oxford. He has taught advocacy with the General Council of the Bar of South Africa and the Sierra Leone Bar Association. He created the first Advocacy Training programme for the Cypriot Bar Association with the ICCA, and has provided training on the rule of law for the National School of Judges in Ukraine, and with Rule of Law Expertise UK (ROLE UK) for the judiciary and legal profession in Argentina. With the True Project and the Institute for International Law and Advocacy Training he has provided training on the use of open-source evidence for the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Grahame is a former Vice-Chair of the Bar Council Equality and Diversity Committee, edited the Bar Council Equality and Diversity Code, wrote the first Diversity Awareness Training Toolkit for both Deka Chambers and the Bar Council, and has led Diversity training for various chambers, the Bar Council, Inner Temple and the Judicial College. In Grahame’s time as Head of Chambers, Chambers won PI and Clinical Negligence Set of the Year and topped the Black Solicitors Network league table for diversity practices and procedures.

Grahame is the founding editor of the APIL Guide to Catastrophic Injury Claims, Clinical Negligence Claims: A Practical Guide, Work Accidents at Sea as well as the Shipping Chapter of Munkman on Employer’s Liability. He was often instructed on claims with difficult issues of expert evidence, and acted in claims such as EXP v Barker involving the duties of expert witnesses in clinical negligence claims. He edited the ICCA Guide to Expert Evidence, and contributed the Expert Evidence and other chapters to Kemp & Kemp Personal Injury Law, Practice and Procedure.

Grahame is a former member of the Executive Committee of the Professional Negligence Bar Association and Chair of their annual Clinical Negligence Conference, as well as the Frankel Topping Court of Protection Deputies’ Forum.

He is a CEDR approved Mediator, and was one of the few counsel nominated by both sides for the NHS Resolve scheme panel.

His work has taken him outside the UK jurisdiction, including the Supreme Court and Court of Appeal in Gibraltar, for which he was admitted to the Gibraltar Bar, and the Privy Council.