Prior to coming to the Bar, Jessie practiced as a solicitor advocate in Australia. She has experience in a broad range of criminal offences, including terrorism, foreign incursions, serious violence, extradition, INTERPOL Red Notices and drug offences. She has also prepared appellate matters before the Court of Appeal and High Court of Australia.
In 2016 Jessie secured a discontinuance of proceedings from the Federal Attorney-General on behalf of volunteers who served with the Kurdish YPG in Syria. In 2018 she was briefed to appear before the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) to argue for the de-proscription of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
For the last 4 years Jessie has undertaken a PhD in Law at the University of Cambridge. Her doctoral research examines the relationship between liberty and the renunciation of political violence.
At Cambridge, Jessie was an academic consultant on criminal law, public law and human rights matters. Select cases include:
R v James; R v Burke – defence of British volunteers who joined the YPG in Syria and were charged with terrorism offences under English law.
Victims’ representation before the Office of the Prosecutor at the International Criminal Court.
Mikolaj Pietrzak v Poland – assisted the UN Special Rapporteur with the drafting of amicus submissions concerning oversight of intelligence organisations, before the European Court of Human Rights.
Witness K – defence of a senior intelligence whistleblower who disclosed the bugging of East Timorese cabinet offices by Australia during treaty negotiations.
Minister for Home Affairs v Benbrika – challenge to the regime of post-sentence detention for convicted terrorist offenders before the High Court of Australia.
Consultant to the NSW Legal Aid High Risk Offender unit on select post-sentence detention cases.
Thorpe v Transport for Victoria – prepared legal analysis on public law issues for the applicant’s counsel in a case concerning the removal of indigenous birthing trees.
Jessie has lectured in international human rights law and security studies at postgraduate level. At Cambridge she taught criminal law on the LLM programme and was a Managing Editor of the Cambridge International Law Journal.
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