Two letters have brought new year joy to east Kent barrister Eloise Marshall – they were the letters Q and C.

The mother-of-three, who lives with her family in Eastry, has been made a Queen’s Counsel, known in legal circles as taking silk.

The senior counsel made her name leading the prosecution case at the Old Bailey in the “Wolf of Wall Street” sex case.

Now Ms Marshall – the daughter of a judge – will be taking on other important cases throughout the UK.

Educated at a French School, and Durham University the social services graduate was called to the bar in 1994 and appears regularly at Canterbury and Maidstone Crown Courts.

The 47-year-old, with a pastime passion for restoring ceramics, said: “I have to say that when I received the letter saying I had become a QC I was utterly thrilled.”

Ms Marshall is married to a teacher and they have three boys: six-year-old twins and a 12 -year-old who is appearing in the Peter Pan panto at Canterbury’s Marlowe Theatre.

One of her first cases she was involved in proved to be “out of this world” when some of the jury in a murder case decided to try to find out who did the killing by using an ouija board.

And another she successfully prosecuted was a serial rapist from Charing who was given a 27-year sentence after a five-year campaign of terror. Jeremy Smith, 52, was convicted of 14 offences involving attacks on four victims who were subjected to degrading and perverted sex acts. He was given 21 years in prison – and the judge then added another six years.