People should “try things even if they seem difficult”, says high flying human rights lawyer Hanif Mussa (History 2001), who took Silk (became a Queen’s Counsel) in March.

At 39, Hanif is one of the youngest barristers to be appointed QC this year, but a positive mindset, hard work and a “fair amount of luck” had paid off, he said.

A former recipient of the Gonville & Caius College Senior Scholarships and the College Bursary Awards, Hanif added that the financial support he had received had been “invaluable” to his career.

Hanif said: “I could not rely on private financial support to fund my education. Neither of my parents had been to university. The bursaries helped cover a significant proportion of my living expenses and made a real difference to me.”

Without that support, Hanif said he would have accrued far higher levels of debt as a student, making it harder to pursue “riskier” options such as a career at the Bar.

He said: “I ask myself what I would have done without the financial support? It would have meant taking on more debt… It is really important that such provision is available for those who need it and deserve it because it helps them to fulfil their ambitions.”

A keen runner and cricketer, one of his best memories from Caius was helping to secure the first ever win for Caius Fourth XI football team against Queen’s Thirds.

Hanif said: “I chipped the goalkeeper from outside the box and my team-mates just completely lost control. Caius fourth had never won a game before but we won that game – we secured our first ever victory!”

Following his time at Caius, Hanif took up a Kennedy Scholarship at Harvard University and MIT before converting to law and trying for a career at the Bar.

One of his most memorable cases in his first years of practice involved an urgent challenge on behalf of Virgin Trains to the Government’s decision to award the West Coast Mainline rail franchise to a competitor.

This involved working “intensely hard” over an August Bank Holiday weekend to issue the challenge at very short notice, Hanif said.

He added: “I went home that evening slightly sleep deprived and weary, thinking ‘do I really want to work these unreasonable hours?’ But I turned on the television and it was my case on the evening news and on Newsnight it was the lead story. Everyone I spoke to about that case told us we were going to lose – but we ended up winning.”

Hanif’s current legal cases include representing Turkish lawyers in the European Court of Human Rights, bringing a claim against the Turkish State to challenge "repressive" measures enacted following an alleged coup against President Erdogan in 2016, and an appeal in the Supreme Court concerning the lawfulness of the trial of voter identification requirements at local government elections.

Questioned about the secret to his success, the barrister said approaching work with “the right mindset” and taking nothing for granted had helped.

Hanif added: “People should try things even if they seem difficult. At the end of the day the worst thing that can happen is that you’re not successful at that particular thing but at least you will have tried.”