Dionne Gilbert

Dionne is an Advocate and a partner in the litigation department. She is experienced in defence criminal advocacy work. In particular, she has been involved in Jersey’s first money laundering trial. She also deals with a wide variety of civil claims and her court experience ranges from personal injury cases to family law cases to contractual disputes.

Dionne has been with Crill Canavan since March 1995 and is the manager of the Litigation Department. She gained her law degree from University of Buckingham and was called to the English Bar in July 1996. She worked in Jersey prior to her call since 1992 and immediately thereafter. She qualified as an Advocate in January 2000.

Dionne Gilbert has extensive experience of representing clients in both the Family Division and Inferior Number of the Royal Court of Jersey in a wide range of ancillary (financial) and child cases. Most recently, Dionne has been involved in persuading the Inferior Number to make Family Assistance Orders under Article 16 of the Children (Jersey) Law 2002 in two cases where the appointment and continued involvement of a family assistance officer was deemed appropriate.

Dionne also represented the Plaintiff in the initial hearing of a case in the Inferior Number in 2006, which was a complex child contact matter involving expert evidence, where the parties were put under some pressure by the Court to complete their submissions within a narrow time frame. The Plaintiff's appeal was successful and the matter was re-heard earlier this year in probably one of the longest private child law hearings in Jersey.

Advocate Gilbert also advises on injunctive proceedings within the context of family litigation where such remedies are necessary.

Specialist areas

• Defence criminal advocacy work
• Civil claims

Recent experience

• Defending one of the largest drug importation cases into the Island
• Defending the first money laundering trial in Jersey involving £1.6 million
• Managing and assisting a negligence case concerning safe systems of work which went to the Privy Council
• Gale & Clarke v Rockhampton Apartments Limited & Others: a precedent setting case laying down the prescription period for a claim in voisinage