I am a Principal Lawyer at Slater & Gordon in Manchester, specialising in acting for victims and survivors of physical and sexual abuse in civil claims, human rights cases and public inquiries, as well as representing families at Article 2 inquests. I am an accredited APIL Senior Litigator. I qualified as a solicitor in 2005 at Pannone LLP, for several years undertaking general PI work, coming to specialise in industrial disease/asbestos and abuse cases, and latterly heading up the actions against the police team. I was made a Partner in 2011 and following the merger with Slater & Gordon in February 2014 I became a Principal Lawyer in both their abuse and disease teams, gradually moving over to abuse work full time.
I am a member of the JPIL editorial board and the executive committee of ACAL (Association of Child Abuse Lawyers. At Pannone I became the PI Partner responsible for training and development and maintaining the firm’s APIL Accreditation. At Slater & Gordon I have developed and presented training sessions to new starters on all aspects of PI work and now regularly lecture on abuse and human rights issues externally and internally. From 2014-2015 I was a member of the firm’s Government and Media Relations Committee.
For APIL I have been part of the working group on CICA reform. I am a regular commentator on abuse and human rights issues in the media. I have written a number of case comments and articles on all aspects of PI litigation law and practice for LexisNexis, JPIL, PILJ and NLJ.
I can bring a strong commitment to education and training and through my proven track record of fighting for victims’ rights through the media and other lobbying I can be an effective and articulate voice for APIL members and their concerns.