The solicitor representing the defendant charged with murdering Liverpool schoolboy Rhys Jones has launched judicial review proceedings against the Legal Services Commission (LSC), claiming that the trial has been wrongly classified as a very high cost case (VHCC).

Seven defendants are due to go on trial on 2 October at Liverpool Crown Court on charges connected to the shooting of the 11-year-old in August last year. The trial is scheduled to last up to 40 days but has been classified by the LSC as a VHCC, which usually last more than 40 days.

Only panel law firms who are specially contracted by the LSC can conduct VHCC trials.

Six of the defendants are represented by panel firms and have full defence teams but the 17-year-old charged with shooting Rhys Jones is represented by James Benson, senior partner at Liverpool firm James Benson & Co, whose firm is not on the panel.

This means that neither Benson, nor junior counsel Jonathan Duffy, are being paid for the case.

Benson has filed a judicial review of the decision and said: ‘We are in negotiations with the LSC and hope... the trial will go ahead as planned.’

An LSC spokesman said the Commission would monitor the Crown Court case and do everything within its power to ensure the trial proceeds as scheduled.

Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said: ‘We made clear to the LSC our concerns that the exclusivity arrangements in the VHCC scheme would lead to perverse outcomes such as this, where the defendant is either denied his solicitor of choice, or his legal team act without payment.’