Baroness Helena Kennedy KC KC > Doughty Street Chambers > London, England > Barrister Profile

Baroness Helena Kennedy KC KC

020 7404 1313 h.kennedy@doughtystreet.co.uk

Work Department

Position

Helena Kennedy practises predominantly in the criminal law, undertaking leading work of all kinds. She also undertakes judicial review, public inquiries and sex discrimination work. She has acted in many of the prominent cases of the last decade including the Brighton Bombing Trial, Guildford Four Appeal, the bombing of the Israeli Embassy, the abduction of Baby Abbie Humphries and a number of key domestic violence cases. She is currently acting in cases connected to the recent wave of terrorism.

She is Chair of the Human Genetics Commission and a member of the World Bank Institute’s External Advisory Council and was recently appointed to the board of the British Museum. She stepped down as Chair of the British Council in July 2004 after completing six years. She is a Bencher of Gray’s Inn and a Member of the House of Lords, speaking on issues of human rights and civil liberties.

She is Vice-President of the Haldane Society, Vice-President of the Association of Women Barristers and a Patron of Liberty. She chaired the Commission of Inquiry into Violence in Penal Institutions for Young People for the Howard League. The Commission’s report Banged Up, Beaten Up, Cutting Up was published in 1995. She chaired the Commission of Inquiry into the health, environmental and safety aspects of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston for Reading Borough Council, the findings published in the report Secrecy Versus Safety1994. In 2004/5, she was Chair of the Inquiry into Sudden Infant Death for the Royal Colleges of Pathologists and of Paediatrics, producing a protocol for the investigation of such deaths. She is an Honorary Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies and a Fellow of the City and Guilds of London Institute. She is a member of the Foreign Policy Centre’s Advisory Council and was the UK member of the International Bar Association’s Task Force on Terrorism.

She is President of the School of Oriental and African Studies at the University of London. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and President of the National Children’s Bureau. As Commissioner on the National Commission for Education she chaired a committee on widening participation in further education and the Commission’s seminal report, Learning Works, was published in 1997.

She has lectured on Human Rights, Criminal Law and many other subjects, both in Britain and internationally. She was the Rose Sheinberg scholar-in-residence at New York University’s School of Law in 2003. She delivered the Hamlyn Trust lecture for the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies in 2002. She was a contributor to The Bar on Trial 1982, Child Sexual Abuse Within the Family 1985 and Balancing Acts1989.

Career

Year of Call 1972; Gray;s Inn; KC 1991; CEDR Accredited Mediator 2011.

Publications of note: ‘Eve Was Framed: Women and the Criminal Justice System’; ‘Just Law: The Changing Face of Justice and Why It Matters To Us All’.

Languages

French.

Education

Holyrood Secondary School, Glasgow.

Leisure

Supporting Portsmouth FC, yoga, listening to music.