The Invisible: BushGreen Live Debate

Fiona Bawdon is a London-based journalist, campaigner and researcher, focusing mainly on civil and criminal justice, particularly youth justice.

She is editor of Legal Action magazine; and development manager (campaigns) at the award-winning charity Just for Kids Law, and worked on its successful Still a child at 17 campaign, which won greater protections for 17 year olds in police custody.

She is founder and coordinator of the Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards, and is a founder member of the Act for the Act campaign in defence of the Human Rights Act.
www.fiona.bawdon.com
@fionabawdon

Karina Kaur is Advocacy Services Coordinator/Manager for Southall Black Sisters, a not-for-profit organisation set up in 1979 to meet the needs of black (Asian and African-Caribbean) and minority ethnic women.

SBS’s advocacy team provide a range of advice and support services to enable black and minority women to gain the knowledge and confidence they need to assert their human rights. They provide general and specialist advice on gender-related issues such as domestic violence, sexual violence, forced marriage, honour killings and their intersection with the criminal justice, immigration and asylum systems, health, welfare rights, homelessness and poverty.

SBS arranges access to legal advice and representation and will support women in taking legal action to secure their protection and rights. This can also include action against public bodies such as the police, social services and coroner’s courts for failing to protect or to carry out their investigative functions properly.

Other services include undertaking policy and research, running campaigns and working with a range of professionals, academics and organisations to develop specific projects.
SBS have also developed training programmes aimed at improving awareness and understanding of gender-related violence and the experiences of black and minority women and children.

The organisation has considerable experience in delivering training on domestic and other forms of gender-related violence, including forced marriage and honour crimes and domestic violence interrelated with immigration and no resource to public fund problems as well as other gender equality matters.

Richard Miller qualified as a solicitor in 1992, and worked for 8 years in a small high street legal aid firm in Kent, where he advised on family matters, accident claims and welfare benefits problems, among other issues. In 2000, he started working full time on legal aid policy issues, with the Legal Aid Practitioners Group. In August 2007, he became Head of Legal Aid at the Law Society, where since 2010 he has led the work against the legal aid cuts that were eventually imposed in 2013. Over the past year, he has headed up the Society’s Access to Justice Campaign, which is seeking to explore different ways in which those who have lost legal aid might get at least some of the help they desperately need.

He has also been engaged in the battle against the Government’s proposals for criminal defence services, which may see two thirds of current firms driven out of the market.

Sue is a social justice campaigner, actively committed to improving the lives of others. She has spent most of her working life in law centres representing the most vulnerable and disadvantaged.

Currently the supervising solicitor at Hammersmith & Fulham Law Centre*, Sue’s main practice is assisting tenants who are facing eviction. She has extensive experience of representing tenants at court and defending legal action on their behalf. She is a specialist in housing and homelessness law and sees her role as giving a voice to those who are have none, and helping them to get protection within the law.

Sue is one of the founding trustees of Ealing Law Centre and was shortlisted for Legal Aid Lawyer of The Year in 2013.

*Hammersmith & Fulham law Centre is a legal advice charity