Accessing Justice

Intermediary, Miriam John, woke up one morning with a psychogenic stammer, which later disappeared as mysteriously as it appeared. In the first episode of the Accessing Justice podcast series 2 (Hidden Disabilities), Miriam talks to her former Speech and Language Therapy lecturer, Dr David Ward (University of Reading) about her own experience and explores how stammering may impact an individual's participation in legal proceedings. 

If you would like to contact David, please note that the email address provided in this episode has now changed. He can now be contacted at: David.ward@reading.ac.uk

For more information about stammering & legal proceedings, download our free guide from The Access Brief and explore some of the excellent work undertaken by STAMMA, including their guidance for judges.

In this podcast, we talk to the Director of the British Institute of Human Rights, Sanchita Hosali. 

The Right to a Fair Trial is Article 6 of the Human Rights Act, however do we know how to use that right if we need it? Sanchita talks to us about the protection the right offers for defendants and respondents with communication difficulties in criminal and family courts.

In this episode we speak to Dr Katie Maras, Senior Lecturer in Psychology and Deputy Director of the Centre for Applied Autism Research at the University of Bath.

Her current work, funded by the ESRC, focuses on how autistic adults think and communicate differently, and what adaptations service providers can make to accommodate these differences.

Dr Maras is particularly interested in how autistic people fare when they are interviewed by the police as a witness or as a suspect of an alleged offence. We spoke to her about how communication needs can be a barrier to fair access to justice during initial police investigations, and when making statements.

In this episode, we are talking to Samantha Forsyth, a Specialist Criminal Practitioner at No5 Chambers in Birmingham. 

Ms Forsyth has extensive experience of supporting defendants with mental health difficulties.

She has spoken at the Supreme Court about the role of intermediaries in England and Wales.

In this episode, we talk to Lucy Reed, Family Barrister, and Author of the Pink Tape legal blog.

Ms Reed has worked at the family bar for more than 15 years, and is committed to helping people to understand what happens in Family Court. She set up her own Pink Tape blog and was also a founder of The Transparency Project.

We spoke to her about how much support there is for respondents with communication needs in the Family Court.

In this episode we are talking to Christian Boakye, Speech and Language Therapist at HMP/YOI Feltham, and Jacqui Learoyd, Lead Speech and Language Therapist at HMP Berwyn.

Christian and Jacqui are both passionate about their roles, there is a high prevalence of people with speech, language and communication needs in UK prisons.

We spoke to them about how they support prisoners with communication needs, and what more needs to be done to ensure there is fair access to justice.