As a Centre we want to help achieve high quality and impactful work across the University within a broad range of topics within the Criminal Justice System. The Centre Leadership Team play an active part in the Centre’s activities and progression and take the lead of certain initiatives by working closely with other members of the Centre’s Leadership Team and members of the Centre across the organisation and with external partners.
We aim to:
– Facilitate general initiatives for theme and Centre
– Contribute ideas and knowledge to the Centre’s strategy and direction
– Promote the Centre in all aspects of work
– Drive forward and lead a certain activities and/or projects associated with a theme
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Professor Claire Gwinnett
Director
Prof Claire Gwinnett is a Professor in Forensic and Environmental Science and is the CCJS Director. She has led and worked on national and international research projects focussing on trace evidence, forensic databases, quality standards in forensic science and microplastic pollution. She conducts casework in hairs and fibres, particularly specialising in wildlife crimes and provides consultancy in validation studies for ISO accreditation for UK police forces. Prof Gwinnett is also the lead for the International Forensic Fibres and Microplastics Research Group that collaborates with organisations in 22 countries.
Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Claire_Gwinnett
Orchid: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6025-3910
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/claire-gwinnett-a1902a28/
Twitter: @StaffsMicro
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Dr Helen Poole
Law, Policing and Forensics Lead
As Dean of the School of Law, Policing and Forensics, home of the Centre for Crime, Justice and Security, Helen has responsibility for the strategic direction and sustainability of the Centre. She has been a practitioner, educator and researcher in the criminal justice system for 25 years, and is passionate about the contribution the centre can make to improving access to justice and improving security for our local, national and international communities.
Helen joined Staffordshire University in August 2019 and has worked in higher education since 2003 at a number of institutions. In recent years, she has become involved in firearms research including projects for the European Union and United Nations. She also has a strong interest in prisons, justice and rehabilitation having worked in the criminal justice sector, including Her Majesty’s Prison Service. Her doctoral thesis examined the function of education within the prison context. She is currently supervising PhDs related to firearms typologies and mass shootings.
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Professor Graham Williams
Theme Lead
Graham is an experienced Forensic Biologist, with his initial training in the Forensic Science Service till 2007 and then working as a Consultant Forensic Biologist since then. Graham is a forensic expert in DNA Profiling, Body Fluid Evidence, Bloodstain Pattern Analysis, and Clothing Damage Analysis. Graham has worked on over 500 cases ranging from volume crimes such as muggings through to serious sexual assaults, homicides and terrorism cases; having given evidence in court numerous times. He started his academic career at the University of Huddersfield where he was Complex Course Leader for a suite of 13 different MSc Forensic Science courses and was the academic lead on a major training contract to deliver forensic science training to 103 international forensic scientists. He was Director of the Forensic Biology Research Group and Co-founder and Deputy Director of the Secure Societies Institute. He has been at Staffordshire University since 2017, where he took up the role of Head of Criminal Justice and Forensic Science and secured a number of funding streams. In 2019, Graham was promoted to Professor of Forensic Biology and stepped up from Head of Department to take on a research leadership role in the School of Law, Policing and Forensics. Graham has published extensively in the field of Body Fluid Evidence and is of the UK’s leading experts in the discipline, he has also published in Forensic Epigenetics and Clothing Damage Analysis. Alongside these roles, Graham continues to provide consultancy advice to various criminal justice practitioners and is the lead of the Forensic Advice Clinic. He also has extensive teaching experience, as a Senior Fellow of Advance HE and can teach across a wide range of forensic disciplines, but with particular expertise in interpretation and bias, court room skills, and expert evidence.
ORCID: http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6379-7174
Google Scholar: http://tinyurl.com/ycqkwg9c
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Professor James Treadwell
Theme Lead
James become a Professor in Criminology at Staffordshire University in 2017. Before he moved into academia, he had previously worked for NACRO and the National Probation Service. His expertise are in violent, professional and organised crime; prisons, prison violence and victimisation; drugs and crime; Ethnography; Crime and the Military. His research is largely based on ethnography and in depth interviewing and he has undertaken a long term ethnographic study of the English Defence League publishing material from that project (with Simon Winlow and Steve Hall) in the well-received book ‘Rise of the Right’. He has recently been researching prison and criminal drugs markets, examining the cultivation of cannabis in economically deprived areas (with Craig Ancrum, Teesside University) and Prison based drug supply as part of a larger project on bullying, violence and victimisation in prison (with Dr Kate Gooch, Leicester Law School, University of Leicester).
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Dr Lauren Metcalfe
Theme Lead
Lauren is a policing academic with a passion for Evidence Based Policing. Her previous research experience spans serious and organised crime, mental health, police demand and early action, amongst other topics. She has experience working with a number of police forces and their partner agencies in England and Wales conducting evaluations and continues to support police forces and wider investigative organisations with research projects. As the Course Director for Policing, Lauren is able to ensure that research is embedded in the taught programmes offered within policing; from research informed teaching to developing students research skills to assisting and providing opportunities for them to undertake their own evidence-based research.
Twitter: https://twitter.com/metcalfe_la?lang=en
Linkedin: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/lauren-metcalfe-886246117
Dr Leanne Savigar-Shaw
Theme Lead
Leanne is currently involved in research concerning disproportionality in policing, focusing upon social and structural factors that influence the variation in police contact and public experiences with the police. This is linked to her expertise in police legitimacy and ethnographic research that has taken place with local police forces to advance a theoretical understanding of procedural justice theory. That theoretical development has been combined with practical learning to be implemented within police forces concerning ‘fairness in policing’ and improving police-public relations to reduce the likelihood of police coercion.
Leanne also has research interests in roads policing and driver education, with expertise specifically in mobile phone use while driving and driver distraction. She has conducted research concerning driver education courses as an alternative to prosecution for various traffic offences and worked on a knowledge-exchange process with various stakeholders interested in tackling mobile phone use while driving to share research knowledge and expertise with others.
Twitter: @LeanneSavigar
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Dr Sarah Fieldhouse
PGR Lead
This role involves co-ordinating the PhD student activities within the Centre. This includes managing the advertisement of Centre funded PhD projects and the application process, from enquiry through to Graduate School approval as well as the progression of the PhD students. This role identifies and helps create activities to support the PGR cohort in their research and personal development. This also involves working closely with the CLT, LPF Professoriate, and the Grant and Fund-raising Lead to identify funding opportunities for Doctoral Training Programmes and lead on any applications. The role ensures that the PhD researchers in the Centre have an excellent student experience.
Dr Sarah Fieldhouse is a Senior Lecturer, Postgraduate Research Lead for the School of Law, Policing and Forensics, and a Graduate School Committee member, overseeing governance of research degrees and helping to build a positive and supportive environment for researchers. Sarah is an Associate Editor of Science and Justice and an active researcher. Her current collaborative projects include the use of light emitting diodes for body fluid detection with CopperTree Forensics, and a research partnership with experts at Yorkshire and the Humber Regional Identification Bureau using creases and features of the back of the hand, fingers, and thumbs, for identification.
Twitter: @DrSarahJF
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/dr-sarah-fieldhouse-b13a91122
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Sarah Page
Mentoring Lead
This role leads the Centre in developing a mentoring scheme for members at all levels in their career and career pathways for the purposes of research, innovation and enterprise type activities. This role works closely with the School Leadership Team sand other members of the Centre Leadership Team (CLT) to create and maintain effective mentoring systems for both mentors and mentees. This role coordinates the appropriate matching of mentors to mentees and provides support to staff involved in this scheme. This role identifies best practice via the creation of a means of evaluating the success of the mentoring schemes and shares this knowledge across the University and externally.
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Dr John McGarry
Government and Parliamentary Lead
This role leads on identifying relevant government and parliamentary consultations that Centre members can contribute their expertise to. This role supports members in positively influencing policy and practice and in doing so improves the external reputation of the Centre and individuals. This role provides guidance in how to contribute to consultations and to maximise their impact via other activities, such as publications.
John is a Senior Lecturer in Law at Staffordshire University having previously taught at the Institute of Higher Education at Blackburn College, the University of Central Lancashire, Edge Hill University and the University of Bolton. His main areas of teaching and research interest are public law and jurisprudence, both of which include considering matters of justice such as the protection of human rights and holding the government to account, politically and legally. In his spare time, he likes to torment his wife and son with very poor, mostly humourless, dad jokes.
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5590-7115
ResearchGate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/John_Mcgarry7
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-mcgarry-a7210a141/
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Dr Kirsty Squires
Grant and Fundraising Lead
This role leads the coordination of the Centre’s grant application activity and leads the Centre’s grant bidding strategies. This role involves the identification of funding opportunities offered via traditional sources (e.g.UKRI, Charities, Horizon Europe) whilst also seeking less traditional forms of funding such as crowd funding. This role identifies and shares training opportunities for Centre members in all aspects of bidding for funds for research, development of professional networks, training programmes and enterprise activities. This role supports members in all stages of funding applications from searching for appropriate programmes to peer review of final bid drafts.
Kirsty is a qualified osteologist and archaeologist. Her research principally focuses upon the analysis and interpretation of burned human remains, the development of techniques used to analyse burned bone, the archaeology of childhood, and the ethical challenges associated with working with human remains. She is currently working on several research projects at the moment including:
- The impact of occupation and environment on health and development in 19th century Staffordshire through an examination of major and trace elements (BABAO funded research. Collaborator: Dr Simon Chenery (British Geological Survey, UK)
- The health, development and social identity of children afforded mummification in the Catacombe dei Cappuccini, Sicily (Collaborator: Dr Dario Piombino-Mascali, Vilnius University, Lithuania)
- Ethical issues in biological anthropology in Argentina (Collaborator: Dr Rocío García-Mancuso, CONICET, University of La Planta, Argentina)
ORCiD: http://orcid.org/0000-0002-0565-9491
Academia.edu: https://staffs.academia.edu/KirstySquires
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Martyn Hordern
External and Media Liaison
This role represents the Centre externally. It involves working closely with the University’s Marketing team and the Centre Leadership Team (CLT). The role entails identifying opportunities to raise the centre’s profile and esteem in the various sectors. This includes the criminal justice system and amongst the public as well as linking into the existing work of the Staffordshire Forensic Partnership which is a formal collaboration between the University and Staffordshire Police. This role requires the attendance at various external events (or identifying individuals to attend) and promoting our activities through various channels (including contributing to our social media activities). This role also leads on the organising and running of Centre-Led events, including annual conferences, showcase conferences and workshops.
Martyn is the coordinator for the Staffordshire Forensic Partnership which is a formal collaboration between the University’s School of Law, Policing and Forensics and Staffordshire Police’s Forensics Department. The role is jointly funded but he is a Police employee. Prior to taking on his current role, he was a Police Officer for 30 years predominately in uniform and spent the latter half working within Criminal Justice as a custody officer and in evidential file review and case progression both at pre and post charge. He was also involved in innovation and project management. Following his retirement, he spent 5 years in Safeguarding before securing his present role in 2019. His current role sees him linking in with police specialists and academics to improve real world forensic practise, networking and assisting students to secure placements with the police who in turn benefit from degree level research at a time when resources make this very difficult to achieve themselves. He is delighted to be involved in the Centre as the External and Media Liaison.
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Sarah Appelbee
Technical Lead
This role leads in the capacity building of technical services for the Centre’s work. This role supports grant applications involving equipment and infrastructure including developing sustainability plans beyond individual research or enterprise projects. This role supports consultancy services including the planning and costings. This role links the technical team to opportunities for research and personal development. This role also identifies opportunities for the technical team to provide CPD to Centre members in laboratory-based activities. This role ensures we have access to cutting-edge technology and resources to ensure the Centre is a leader in its research, consultancy, enterprise and professional development activities.
Sarah has a Master’s Degree in Chemistry and has worked at Staffordshire University for 11 years. Prior to this, she gained 15 years industrial experience at pharmaceutical companies like Novartis and GlaxoSmithkline using a combination of wet chemistry techniques and a variety of analytical instruments.
She has worked in the Analytical Methods Laboratory and Specialist Equipment Laboratory alongside her colleagues Alison Davidson and Simon Cooper. Here she supported practical classes and research by demonstrating a range of analytical instruments to students at all levels, both individually and in group sessions. Her main areas of expertise are in Liquid and Gas Chromatography and Mass Spectrometry, but she also regularly works with X-ray Diffraction (XRD), Scanning Electron Microscopy (SEM), Atomic Absorption Spectroscopy, FTIR and Raman.
In addition to working with students she analyses external samples for enterprise activities relating to analytical chemistry. They carry out occupational hygiene monitoring on a range of samples, analysing metals, dusts, volatile organic compounds, soils and acids to check workplace exposure limits. She also supervises placements to provide students with real world laboratory experience.
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Dissemination of Research Leads
These roles lead in the development and implementation of the Centre’s dissemination strategy. Our strategy aims to maximise the contribution and impact of our members’ work, which includes research, enterprise, consultancy and knowledge exchange, to ensure it reaches key stakeholders. The Dissemination Leads provides opportunities for members to gain and improve their skills in producing and sharing their research and professional practice outputs to a range of audiences including stakeholders, researchers and the public on local, national and global scales. In addition, they support members in creating their dissemination plans and helping to identify key pathways to impact.
Dr Rachel Bolton-King
Rachel specialises in the criminal use of firearms and the use of technology to detect, analyse, investigate and prevent shooting incidents in modern and/or archaeological contexts. She primarily works alongside law enforcement and forensic science practitioners to advance current practice and the underpinning science and was awarded a Churchill Fellowship in 2019 to support this. Amongst other projects, Rachel has been working with NABIS and UK police forces on maximising timeliness of operational workflows and is collaborating with Aston University to increase objectivity of firearm identification. A more detailed profile can be found on her LinkedIn and ORCiD webpages.
ORCiD: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9208-7857
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rachel-bolton-king-54147824/
Researchgate: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rachel_Bolton-King2
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Dr Kayleigh Denyer
Kayleigh is a Lecturer in Policing, with a background in forensic psychology. She was the lead researcher in conducting research to protect vulnerable people at British Transport Police, where she translated complex research findings into actionable recommendations for policy and practice. She has research expertise and interests in sexual offences, upskirting, harmful practices (including female genital mutilation, forced marriage, honour-based abuse), countylines, mental health, and suicide prevention.