Beth has a multi-disciplinary practice and accepts nationwide instructions in her core practice areas of crime and protest rights, inquests, civil actions against the police, housing, and prison law.
Prior to pupillage Beth spent four years as the Senior Researcher for a member of Labour’s Shadow Justice Team working on legislative scrutiny and policy development relating to courts, sentencing, and legal aid. She therefore has substantial expertise in parliamentary advocacy and campaigning. She is particularly interested in sentencing and prison law. Her MPhil examined prisoners’ experience of variable sentencing through correspondence-based research. She is also a Trustee of the Sentencing Academy.
Beth’s achievements include an Inner Temple Major Scholarship for the BPC and an Inner Temple Exhibition Award and ULaw Career Changer Scholarship for the GDL. She was also named proxime accesserunt for the Manuel López-Rey Graduate Prize and awarded a St Edmund’s College Prize for her performance in the MPhil Criminological Research.
Beth is regularly instructed to represent defendants accused of offences committed in protest contexts, including high-value criminal damage, burglary, public nuisance, and other public order offences. Beth has secured acquittals by jury for clients after appealing to ‘reasonable excuse’ defences and arguing that a conviction would amount to a disproportionate interference with a defendant’s human rights.
Beth has a busy housing practice and is frequently instructed to defend vulnerable tenants and mortgagors in possession proceedings. She is able to advise and represent clients on the full range of landlord and tenant matters, including anti-social behaviour, disrepair, and discrimination. She has experience defending claims on the basis of public law, human rights, and discrimination under the Equality Act 2010.
Beth accepts instructions to act for bereaved families in inquests following deaths in the community.
During her pupillage Beth shadowed a range of inquests where members were acting on behalf of bereaved families in relation to deaths in detention settings, following police contact, and in the community. She observed hearings from each stage of the inquest process, from pre-inquest review hearings to jury inquests, as well as legal argument on the engagement of Article 2. She has experience drafting legal submissions, including on the engagement of Article 2.
Beth has a particular interest in prison and sentencing law and is keen to further build her practice in this area. She has been instructed on a number of complex Tier 4 parole hearings, acting for prisoners who have been sentenced to IPP, DPP, life and extended sentences.
Beth’s privacy notice can be viewed here.
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