‘This talk presents an overview of pseudoscience within therapeutic contexts in the twenty-first century, juxtaposed with the risks posed to public health and the criminal justice system. It identifies the adverse outcomes that may arise from specific psychotherapeutic treatments and popular pseudo-scientific beliefs. The justice response and published cases are briefly explored. This talk concludes by advancing the case for increased therapeutic regulation and justice safeguards.’

Date: 29th January 2019, 6.00-7.30pm

Location: IGLT, Whitehead Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘Sexual crime remains a matter of deep public concern and has received considerable scrutiny over the years. A pivotal event was the unprecedented reporting of sexual allegations that followed a TV documentary in October 2012 about the late Jimmy Savile leading to the Metropolitan Police forming Operation Yewtree. This talk seeks to place these events in context, to understand the factors that can impact upon the investigation and how it continues to shape the police approach to allegations reported sometimes years after the events. These types of allegation will always raise strong opinions among commentators. Some believe that such a serious crime as child abuse should always go before the courts regardless of time passed. There are others who state it is an affront to natural justice and that such prosecutions are unsafe. We will explore whether delays in reporting can secure safe and ethical prosecutions or inevitably lead to justice denied for the accused or the complainant.’

Date: 15th January 2019, 6.00-7.30pm

Location: IGLT, Whitehead Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘The Parole Board turned 50 in 2017 but it has recently found itself the subject of high profile stories about what appear to be dangerous and risky decisions to release high profile prisoners convicted of the most serious of crimes. Is this a new issue? How are these decisions made and how on earth can murderers, robbers or rapists ever be safely released to the community? What are the tools to achieve this and how much can Parole assessments be relied upon to predict risk?

In this talk prison lawyer Emma McClure lays out how the Parole Board operates in practice; the way risk assessments are conducted and the problems that exist in the current system in trying to make evidence-based decisions and the management of society’s most dangerous people within a problem-ridden criminal justice system.’

Date: 11th December 2018, 6.00-7.00pm

Location: IGLT, Whitehead Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.

‘To inform a criminal investigation, police may ask an eyewitness to that crime to try to identify the perpetrator from a lineup. Eyewitnesses, however, have a bad reputation for being unreliable. That reputation is due to, in part, the fact that eyewitness researchers once viewed the relationship between the accuracy of an eyewitness’s initial identification and the confidence expressed in that identification as weak. Lab-based and field studies alike show that identifications made with high confidence are highly accurate whereas identifications made with low confidence are much less so. Confidence expressed during the initial procedure is therefore diagnostic of accuracy. In fact, it is by far the best predictor of accuracy. And when taken into account, the data challenge the longstanding notion that eyewitnesses are unreliable. The data also provide a way for the criminal justice system to improve the probative value of eyewitness evidence.’

Date: 27th November 2018, 6.00-7.30pm

Location: IGLT, Whitehead Building

Charge: Free

More information can be found here.