Vicky Kemp

Background

About Vicky Kemp

Having completed by doctorate in youth justice reforms and multi-agency functioning at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge, I have been working as a Principal Research Fellow in the School of Law, University of Nottingham. My specialisms include youth justice, police custody, children's legal rights, access to justice and criminal legal aid. With funding from the Nuffield Foundation, we have just completed a study on the detention and questioning of child suspects in police custody. For the first time in England and Wales, this included engaging with children while detained about their legal rights. We have now embarked on a second study, also funded by the Nuffield Foundation, where we are working with the police and other agencies in piloting a Child First approach in police custody. I was a member of the Lord Chancellor's Expert and Advisory Panel on the Criminal Legal Aid Review, chaired by Lord Bellamy KC, and my research was influential in informing recommendations to put more resources into the front end of the criminal process so that good quality legal advice would help to provide benefits and cost savings further down the line. I was previously a Principal Researcher in the Legal Services Research Centre, the research unit of the former Legal Services Commission.