Stefan Cross Centre Annual Lecture speaker confirmed to be Harriet Wistrich

The Stefan Cross Centre for Women, Equality and the Law (SCC) is delighted to confirm that Harriet Wistrich will be the speaker at our 2024 annual lecture.

Harriet will talk about sex discrimination within the criminal justice system on Thursday 27 February.

Harriet is the founder and director of the Centre for Women’s Justice, a multi-partner organisation aimed at bringing cases holding the state to account in relation to violence against women and girls. She is also a solicitor working with the renowned civil liberties firm Birnberg Peirce and Partners. Harriet won the Liberty Human Rights Lawyer of the Year award 2014, she was named Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year 2018, and Law Society legal personality of the year 2019.  She founded the campaign group Justice for Women, and is trustee of the charity The Emma Humphreys Memorial Prize.

She acted for DSD and NBV in the Supreme Court case against the Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, which has established a duty to investigate under Article 3 ECHR.  She also acted for the same claimants in a successful judicial review challenge of the parole board decision to release John Worboys.  Harriet acted for the claimants, young women formerly pimped into prostitution, in a challenge of the Disclosure and Barring Scheme requirement that they disclose criminal convictions for soliciting.

She has also acted for a number of women in appeals against convictions for the murder of their violent partners, most recently Sally Challen, relying on new evidence of coercive and controlling behaviour.  She also represented women who were deceived into relationships with undercover police officers, obtaining an unprecedented apology for a group of eight women.

Harriet Wistrich has recently published the memoir "Sister in Law: Fighting for Justice in a System Designed by Men," in which she shares her extensive experience of representing women let down by the justice system.