Barbara Hewson

Barbara Hewson is an Irish barrister with a practice in public law. Hewson specialises in Court of Protection work, human rights, judicial review, and regulatory defence cases. She is interested in reproductive health and the rights of pregnant women, the mentally incapacitated and the mentally ill.

History

Personal

Hewson was born and brought up in Ireland.

Hewson was educated at St. Leonards-Mayfield School in 1972-79, and at Cambridge University in 1979-82. She has a B.A. (Hons.) from Cambridge University in 1982, later upgraded to an M.A..

Legal training

Hewson received a Diploma in Law from the Polytechnic of Central London in 1984.^[1] She was called to the Bar of England and Wales in 1985. Later she was called to the Bar of Ireland in 1991, and to the Bar of Northern Ireland in 2000.^[2]

Hewson began her legal career as a Chancery barrister in 1987, following her pupillage (traineeship). An example of her Chancery work is Mills & Ors v MI Developments (UK) Ltd & Anr [2002] EWCA Civ 1576.^[3] Her practice evolved into European, public and human rights law. She has been counsel in over 60 cases reported in official law reports.

Practice profile

Hewson has appeared in a number of high-profile cases. In the 1990s, she campaigned against court-ordered treatment of pregnant women, claiming that family courts were depriving women of fundamental rights to personal autonomy and to a fair trial. She was junior counsel in the landmark case of St George's NHS Trust v S [1999] Fam 26, upholding the right of competent pregnant women to refuse medical intervention, which resulted in Guidelines being laid down by the Court of Appeal for future cases.^[4] Hewson was the first barrister to receive The Lawyer's "Barrister of the Year" Award, for her work on this issue.

She was critical of the Court of Appeal's ruling in the case of Jodie and Mary, the Maltese conjoined twins, in 2002, and acted for pro-life campaigner Bruno Quintavalle in an unsuccessful bid to stop the twins' separation.^[5]

In Ireland, she appeared in a number of cases in the Four Courts in Dublin, notably concerning the home birth midwife Ann Kelly during 1997-2000, but also vulnerable adults.^[6][7][8][9] She was counsel in several compensation cases about Caesarean hysterectomies by Michael Neary (surgeon), who worked at Our Lady of Lourdes' Hospital in Drogheda.

In 2010, she acted for the family of David Gray at the inquest into Mr Gray's death following an overdose of Diamorphine, administered by locum German doctor Daniel Ubani, who had been recruited by Take Care Now. Coroner William Morris gave a verdict of gross negligence manslaughter, and made 11 Recommendations to the Department of Health to improve out-of-hours GP services.^[10] The Times profiled Hewson as its Lawyer of the Week on 11 February 2010.^[11]

She has acted as counsel in cases in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, notably P, C & S v. United Kingdom (2002) 35 E.H.R.R. 31; Glass v. United Kingdom (2004) 39 E.H.R.R 341; D v. Ireland (2006) 43 E.H.R.R. SE16 and Gray & Gray v Germany (49278/09), 22 May 2014.

She also contributed to amicus briefs in the cases of Aydin v.Turkey (1997) 25 E.H.R.R. 251 (on rape in police custody as a breach of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights), and of Greater Glasgow & Clyde Health Board v Doogan & Wood [2015] 2 W.L.R. 126 in the UK's Supreme Court (on the right of midwives to conscientious objection in the context of abortion).^[12]

She is named as a Band 1 Junior for Court of Protection - Health & Welfare in Chambers Legal Directory (2015). The Legal 500 (2014) calls her a "leading junior" in the fields of Administrative Law, Civil Liberties, and Disciplinary Law.

Affiliations

Hewson remains a member of the Chancery Bar Association. For many years, she has been a member of the Pegasus Club (a Bar riding group).

She has been a trustee of the British Pregnancy Advisory Service since 2007. She was made an Honorary Fellow of the University of Westminster in 2012.

Hewson was a founder-member of the Association of Women Barristers (AWB) in 1991.^[13] The same year, Hewson was elected to the Bar Council of England & Wales. As Press Officer for the AWB, she became known for commenting on a range of issues concerning women and the law in national media.

Hewson was also a member of the Council of JUSTICE, the law reform charity, from 1996-2006. She contributed to two JUSTICE Reports, on Protection of the Small Investor (1992) and on Interventions in Public Interest Cases (1996).

Hewson joined the Disability Discrimination Act Representation and Advice Project (DDARAP), which Michael Rubenstein set up in 1997 to provide pro bono assistance to claimants taking cases under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995.

Hewson was invited to become an expert adviser to Falsely Accused Carers & Teachers (FACT) in 2014. She participated as a panellist at FACT's Spring Conferences in 2014 (Oxford) and 2015 (Cardiff). She also addressed the 2014 AGM of the British False Memory Society.^[14]

On 6 June 2015, Hewson addressed a conference at Goldsmiths College, organised by the British Humanist Association, the Centre for Inquiry UK and the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit (Goldsmiths) on the topics of false memory, false allegations, and alleged Satanic Ritual Abuse.^[15]

Views

Hewson has long been opposed to state paternalism in the field of medical decision-making, and strongly supports patient autonomy.^[16] She is a supporter of abortion rights for women,^[17][18] and of women's rights in childbirth. She has argued that abortion should be removed from the criminal law.^[19] She was a panellist at the inaugural "Human Rights in Childbirth" Summit held at The Hague, the Netherlands, in 2012.^[20]

She is a strong supporter of personal privacy and freedom from press intrusion.^[21][22][23] She is opposed to censorship of the arts.^[24]

She is a critic of the modern social purity movement and of fourth-wave feminism, whose supporters she believes infantilise women as inherently fragile and vulnerable.

She has also critiqued human rights culture.^[25][26]

She has always been concerned for due process and the rights of the defence in civil cases, and more recently in criminal cases. One of her earliest reported cases, concerning an Anton Piller (search and seize) order, was Intergraph Corporation v Solid Systems CAD Services Ltd [1993] FSR 617.

Recently, she has become known as a vigorous defender of the rights of the accused in criminal trials, particularly those charged with historic sexual offences, and has written on this for both the online magazine Spiked Online and in the legal journals The Barrister and Criminal Bar Quarterly.^[27] She is a critic of Operation Yewtree.^[28][29][30]

Writing

She has written numerous articles for a wide range of practitioners' and academic journals such as Public Law, The Barrister, Criminal Bar Quarterly, The Justice Gap, New Law Journal, Solicitors Journal, Counsel, The Lawyer, Legal Week, Times Law Page, Medical Law Review, Feminist Legal Studies, British Medical Journal, Journal of Medical Ethics, Abortion Review and the AIMS Journal. Her work has been published in LM, Conscience, Sunday Business Post, Indy Voices and The Salisbury Review. Hewson has also been a contributor to the online magazine Spiked Online, which has a libertarian and humanist standpoint, since 2002.

She contributed chapters to Boswell G. & Poland F. (Eds.) "Women's Bodies, Women's Minds" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2003); Kirkham M. (Ed.) "Informed Choice in Maternity Care" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004) and Hillard T. & Purdie D. (Eds.) "The Yearbook of Obstetrics and Gynaecology" (RCOG Press, 2004). One of her pieces for Spiked Online, "Fetishising Images" (2003) was reprinted in Wall D. S. (Ed.) "Crime and Deviance in Cyberspace" (Ashgate, 2009). She is a contributor to "Justice in a Time of Moral Panic" (Ed. Robins J.) for The Justice Gap, to be published in September 2015, and also authored a chapter in "Vilified: Wrongful Allegations of Sexual and Child Abuse" (Ed. Burnett R.), to be published by Oxford University Press in February 2016.

Examples of her academic legal writing are: "Case Analysis: Norfolk & Norwich Healthcare (NHS) Trust v W; Rochdale Healthcare (NHS) Trust v Choudhury" (1997) 2 Journal of Civil Liberties 44-53; "Killing Off Mary: Was the Court of Appeal Right?" (2001) Medical Law Review 9:3 281-298; "The Law on Abortion in Northern Ireland" (2004) Public Law 234-45; "Dancing on the Head of A Pin: Foetal life and the European Convention" (2005) 13 Feminist Legal Studies 363, and "'Neither Midwives nor Rainmakers' - why D.L. is Wrong" (2013) Public Law 451-9.

Whilst previously supporting anonymity for complainants in sex cases, she changed her mind in 2003, arguing for the abolition of anonymity for complainants in such cases.^[31] The same year, she voiced reservations about Labour's Sexual Offences Bill.^[32]

Writing in both Spiked Online and Counsel, Hewson has criticised therapeutic jurisprudence in the family courts.^[33]

In 2007, 2012 and again in 2013, she opposed the wearing of veils in court, as militating against the principle of open justice.^[34][35][36] She also favours abolishing the dock so as to ensure a level playing field for accused persons.^[37]

In 2014, she criticised the tactics of the NSPCC as "an attempt to smear the legal profession which undertakes defence work."^[38]

2013 Controversy

Hewson was involved in controversy in 2013, after the NSPCC's Press Officer strongly urged her to remove or reword an article she had written for Spiked Online on 8 May entitled "Yewtree is Destroying the Rule of Law,"^[39] a few hours after it was published. Her article criticised the role of the NSPCC (which she called a "moral crusader") and the Metropolitan Police in treating complainants as "victims" in the wake of the Savile scandal, and the proliferation of prosecutions of elderly defendants. She had noted that the crimes of Stuart Hall (who had pleaded guilty to numerous charges of indecent assault) constituted misdemeanour offences, as opposed to crimes like rape and murder. She had proposed that there be a statute of limitations for criminal sex offences; that complainant anonymity be removed, and that the age of consent, which was raised by the Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 1885 should be changed back to the previous age of thirteen.

Hewson rejected the NSPCC's demand, citing Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. The NSPCC then said it would take this to news desks. The NSPCC proceeded to attack Hewson publicly for her views, calling them "out-dated and simply ill-informed." Hewson then experienced a media storm. On the evening of 8 May 2013, her then chambers Hardwicke issued a statement proclaiming the set "shocked" by her Yewtree article for spiked.^[40]

Hewson stood by her article, invoking Voltaire.^[41] She received menacing messages via social media,^[42] but also many messages of support via e-mail and bloggers, concerned by Operation Yewtree and supporting the principle of free speech.^[43][44] Brendan O'Neill, editor of Spiked Online, spoke out in Hewson's defence on BBC's Radio 5, saying "I published it because it's a fantastic article."

On 12 May 2013, the Irish Independent's columnist Eilis O'Hanlon commented: "The vehemence of the reaction against Barbara Hewson demonstrates that she was certainly right to compare the public mood around this issue to a witch-hunt, since it is in the nature of witch-hunts to not only shout down opposition, but also to attack what you think someone said, or what you wish they'd said, rather than what they did say."^[45]

The sociologist Frank Furedi claimed that Hewson had been "morally lynched" for expressing political opinions, and accused the NSPCC of "moral blackmail."^[46] Rod Liddle then criticised the NSPCC and Hardwicke in an article for The Spectator.^[47]

Aftermath

Hewson continued to write regularly for spiked,^[48] and gave an interview to Channel 4 News about her Yewtree article on 8 July 2013.^[49] On 7 August 2013, she appeared on Channel 4 News to discuss a controversy, where another barrister had called a child abuse victim "predatory." ^[50]

The Salisbury Review republished her Yewtree article, under the title "A Tribute to Modern Babylon."^[51] Hewson was profiled in The Times' Law Section on 26 September 2013.^[52]

She went on to critique the "cult of victimhood" in a series of articles for The Barrister, where she also discussed problems of memory and a prevailing compensation culture.^[53][54]

On 17 October 2013, Hewson participated in a panel debate in the Battle of Ideas Festival at the Barbican, about "The Law and our Private Lives: An Abusive Relationship?"^[55]

On 25 October 2013, Hewson was one of 100 women invited by the BBC to a unique day of debate and discussion about women's role in society.^[56]

On 30 October 2013, she debated the proposition "Is Rape Different?" at the LSE with Reader in Law Helen Reece, Professor Jennifer Temkin and Crown Prosecutor Nazir Afzal, arguing that women should resist special treatment in such cases on equality grounds.^[57][58] Some feminist academics later attacked Hewson's and Reece's role in the debate.^[59][60] Their reaction was criticised by the Law Editor of spiked, who had attended the debate.^[61] Hewson then wrote an article for spiked amplifying her views.^[62]

Media appearances

On 30 January 2014, Hewson appeared on BBC 2's "Daily Politics" programme to debate the need for a new Victims' Law with former DPP Sir Keir Starmer QC.

During 2014, Hewson appeared again on Channel 4 News to discuss the outcomes of the first Dave Lee Travis trial, and of the Max Clifford trial.

On 18 October 2014, Hewson appeared in a panel debate on "Victims' Law" in the 2014 Battle of Ideas Festival at the Barbican.^[63]

Hewson featured on a BBC Radio 4 programme broadcast on 17 November 2014, "Can Time Run Out for Justice?", curated by Sir Keir Starmer QC.^[64]

On 8 July 2015, she appeared on BBC Radio 3's "Free Thinking" to discuss Law, Language and Legal Aid with Robert Howe QC of Blackstone Chambers.^[65]

References

External links

• Barbara Hewson on Twitter