Isle of Wight law firm Churchers has created one of the strongest criminal defence teams on the Island after adding Barry Arnett to its team.

Churchers now has two out of the four duty solicitors on the Isle of Wight, with Barry joining Henry Farley.

In addition Amy Hosell has also recently qualified as a duty solicitor and will join the roster later in the year.

The three solicitors have almost 80 years of criminal defence work between them — creating one of the most experienced teams on the Island.

Barry Arnett is well-known in Isle of Wight legal circles. After 22 years working in criminal law on the mainland, he has practised for a further 22 years on the Island providing high-quality and effective legal defence work.

He had been at RJR Solicitors — which recently merged with Churchers — briefly in the early 2000s before taking over as head of the criminal department at Roach Pittis, a position he held for many years.

He initially retired in August 2020 but returned in April 2021 when he was contacted by so many of his regular clients. He has now switched to join the Churchers criminal team.

Barry said: “I am delighted to be working with the Churchers team here on the Isle of Wight — our combined years of practise means we offer a formidable level of knowledge and experience for the benefit of all of our clients.”

Churchers Solicitors' managing partner, Andrew Bryan, said: “We are delighted to have someone of the calibre of Barry join our criminal team in the Isle of Wight.

“We already had a very strong and experienced team working on crime cases on the Isle of Wight but the opportunity to add the experience, knowledge and know-how of someone of Barry’s calibre was too good an opportunity to miss.

“Barry is well known for the work that he has done over many years on the Island and people now know they can continue to get that fantastic level of service from Barry and the rest of the Churchers criminal team.”