ON A CRUSADE FOR JUSTICE
“I ACCEPT I don’t look like a stereotypical barrister. My clerks have had calls asking for ‘Jesus’ from people who have seen me in court and want me to represent them.” With his beard and flowing, shoulder-length hair, Gul Nawaz Hussain is indeed far removed from the usual expectation of what a criminal lawyer should look like – but there is no doubting his effectiveness in the courtroom.
The 42-year-old father-of-three has become the first Sheffield-based criminal defence lawyer for 15 years to be appointed as a Queen’s Counsel, a much sought-after title granted to the country’s most effective courtroom advocates that opens the door to working on criminal cases of the very highest profile.
Hussain will formally be sworn-in as a QC next month at a ceremony in the Palace of Westminster. He says the ceremony will be an incredibly proud moment for his family, who have been elated since his appointment was confirmed in late December.
Their unconfined joy is little surprise given Hussain’s journey to this point in his career. His father Mahboob came to England in the 1960s from the Kashmir region of Pakistan when he was 11 and entered the world of work aged just 12, first in the textile mills of Lancashire before moving to the steelworks of South Yorkshire. He eventually started a family with his wife Zahida Parveen and they settled in Tinsley in northeast Sheffield.
Hussain’s father’s lack of schooling meant he struggled to read or write in English. But he became involved in trade union activities at the steelworks – and soon found a willing helper in his son. “I would go along with him to meetings to help him out and read things,” Hussain says. “I started to appreciate the importance of having people who are willing to speak for those who are unable to do it themselves.”
He says he became interested in pursuing a career in the law, something his father supported. “He was always pushing my sisters and me towards being academic. My sister got a firstclass honours degree in Chemistry as well as a PhD and is now a teacher at Repton School in Dubai. My youngest sister is a police officer and the first to wear a hijab on duty in Yorkshire.
“When I was younger, my dad took me to the steelworks, it was boiling hot and everyone’s face was black with dirt. He said ‘If you don’t work at school and put the effort in, you will be coming to work here’. I knew I wasn’t tough enough to do that!”
Hussain was also kept on the straight and narrow as a teenager by his involvement at the Sheffield Thai Boxing gym, with the discipline and tactical awareness required to practice the combat sport later helping him in the courtroom.
After doing a law degree and the necessary postgraduate diploma while supporting himself through university by working as a nightclub doorman and martial arts instructor, Hussain then needed to take the vital next step on the path to becoming a barrister; winning a coveted pupillage to work for 12 months in a set of legal chambers against fierce competition. But after an interview, he managed to secure a place at a chambers in Nottingham.
“I said I wanted to help people and make a difference in society. I was asked ‘Are you on some kind of crusade?’ I thought ‘should I say what I think they want to hear or say what I feel?’ It was an easy decision and I said, ‘Yes, I am’. I didn’t think I would get the place. But they called me back and I ultimately got the pupillage. It was a lesson in ‘to thine own self be true’.”
Hussain believes his background has helped him to be a more effective advocate for his clients. “When you have had a real taste of life, you can understand people’s difficulties more. Sometimes you might divulge a little more about yourself to help them understand I know what I’m talking about.”
One of his biggest early cases was being part of the defence team for Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, one of five men accused of a plot to detonate explosives on three Tube trains and a bus in London in 2005. The other four men were found guilty and jailed for life but the jury were unable to reach a verdict on Asiedu on a charge of conspiracy to murder. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of conspiracy to cause explosions and was jailed for 33 years.
He says he drew on his experiences in Thai boxing to help overcome his nerves when he had to conduct the defence case after the QC he was working with fell ill. “What I had been taught at the gym about confidence, not quitting and allowing fear to take control, being focused, I drew upon it all. One of the QCs complimented me afterwards saying ‘you did a fine job’.”
Hussain also represented one of three inmates accused of a revenge attack on former Bosnian Serb general Radislav Krstic in Wakefield jail, where the latter man was serving a 35-year sentence for his part in the genocide of 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica in 1995.
The men were cleared of attempted murder but convicted of wounding with intent to cause GBH. “You had a convicted war criminal in the witness box, it was quite a surreal case. This guy had a prosthetic leg and you would look at him and see this frail old man. Then you would remember what he had done; aiding and abetting the genocide of 8,000 men and boys.”
More recently, Hussain played a vital role in clearing the name of a Sheffield dessert shop owner called Rassam Ali, who was jailed for three years in March 2015 after being wrongly convicted of a sex attack on a child.
After spending 18 months in prison, Ali cleared his name in November 2016 after his original conviction was quashed by the Court of Appeal and the CPS decided not to bring a retrial once new evidence that had been missed in the original police investigation was brought to light by the defence team.
Ali said after the case that Hussain had been “more like a brother than a barrister”.
Hussain says the answer to the ageold question of how lawyers defend people accused of appalling offences is simple. “People who ask that question have a fundamental misunderstanding of what the justice system is.
“Every person has a right to be represented regardless of what they are accused of.
“Imagine your door gets put through at 2am by the police and you are arrested for sex offences with a child.
“You know you haven’t done it, your family might stand by you but gradually your friends and work colleagues think you must have done it as ‘there’s no smoke without fire’.
“Do you want someone to represent you who thinks the same as them and prejudges you or someone who says ‘I’m here to do my job and do all I can to explain your side of the story’?
“My job is to put forward a person’s case in the best way I can.
“But it is not like in the films. If someone tells me they are guilty, I can’t mislead the court.”