My undergraduate degree was in Law and Politics and I qualified as a Barrister in 2004, but then completed an MRes Criminal Justice followed by a PhD in Criminal Justice at the University of Manchester and started teaching in HE. My core areas of research and teaching have always been the English legal system, criminal law and criminal justice.

My PhD looked at the relationship between plea bargaining and late guilty pleas and I retain an interest in plea bargaining and pre-trial justice. More recently, I have published work on autistic defendants and on the ethics of defence lawyers. Another area of teaching and research expertise is around socio-legal approaches to sexual offending, including 'gender deception' cases, which deal with legal and social constructions of gender and transgender defendants.

My current role is as Co-Director of Studies Criminology and Criminal Justice at Brunel University of London, where I am involved with criminal justice teaching and research as well as professional policing education.

Experience

  • 2021–present
    Senior Lecturer in Criminology & Criminal Justice , Brunel University of London
  • 2017–2021
    Head of Criminology, UWL
  • 2014–2017
    Senior Lecturer in Criminology, UWL
  • 2008–2014
    Lecturer in Law, University of Surrey

Education

  • 2009 
    University of Manchester, PhD in Law (Criminal Justice)
  • 2004 
    University of Manchester, MRes Criminal Justice Research
  • 2003 
    MMU, Bar Vocational Course (now BPTC)