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About
Richard conducts socio-legal and doctrinal research at the intersection of criminal justice, human rights and public law. He teaches Criminal Justice and Sentencing, Criminal Law and Public Law. Richard’s monograph, Policing Human Rights (OUP, 2021) was joint runner up of the Inner Temple Book Prize – New Author’s Prize, and shortlisted for the Peter Birks Prize for Outstanding Legal Scholarship and the Hart-SLSA Book Prize for Early Career Academics. His article ‘Righting the Police’ was winner of the British Society of Criminology’s Brian William Prize and his article ‘When Police Kill in the Line of Duty’ was cited with approval by the UK Supreme Court in R(W80) 2023 UKSC 24 (at [85]).
Richard is qualified as a barrister in England and Wales (non-practising) and a member of Lincoln’s Inn, where he was a Lord Denning Scholar. He is a graduate of the University of Bristol (LLB) and the University of Oxford (MSc, DPhil, New College). He is an Associate Fellow of the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights (Oxford Law Faculty). His visiting positions include Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales (2016), Visiting Scholar at the School of Law, Queen’s University Belfast (2026), and George Flannery Visiting Fellow at Sydney Law School (2026). Previously, Richard was a Fellow at LSE (2017–19) and a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, University of Oxford (2019–20).
Research
Projects and Publications
Policing Human Rights
Policing Human Rights (Oxford University Press) draws on a year of fieldwork with the Police Service of Northern Ireland to produce an account of how human rights law is interpreted and applied, but also re-defined and resisted, by a variety of officers conducting routine police. Deploying concepts from socio-legal studies, criminology and anthropology, it examines the role of human rights norms in everyday police practices and vernaculars. Policing Human Rights is animated by the country’s recent conflict and lingering ethno-politics; contestation over human rights abounds.
The Statutory Reform of Pre-Charge Bail
The Policing and Crime Act 2017 overhauled the law governing police use of pre-charge bail. It established a presumption in favour of a suspect’s release from custody without bail, introduced new statutory tests of ‘necessity’ and ‘proportionality’ and instigated a rigorous internal police authorisation process. The reforms have resulted in a dramatic reduction in the use of pre-charge bail and been hotly contested by senior police and victims groups. Working with a police force in England and Wales, this project draws on qualitative and quantitative data to explore how police are interpreting and applying the new statutory tests, and the impact on investigatory practices and decision-making in custody.
In Pursuit of ‘Ethical Duties’
This British Academy funded project sought to compare the crafting and performance of the statutory duties to have ‘due regard’ to equality commitments in England (s149(1) Equality Act 2010) and to give ‘proper consideration’ to human rights in Victoria (s38(1) Victoria Charter of Rights and Responsibilities). Doctrinally, the project analyses how the courts interpret and apply these duties. Empirically, it constructs an account of public law from the ground-up. It sought to use qualitative methods to elicit equality and rights practices, vernaculars and assumptions that animate the administration of state power and allocation of resources. The research hopes to encourage greater appraisal of the particular role and capacity of public authorities as actors involved in equality and rights ‘dialogues’ alongside the judiciary and legislature.
Policing Human Rights: Law, Narratives and Practice (Oxford University Press, 2021)
Human rights go to the heart of policing in democratic societies. Across the world, police are now governed by human rights principles and increasingly detailed standards - from arrest and detention to the regulation of protest and the use of lethal force. Yet there has been remarkably limited research examining human rights as a central feature of contemporary police reform, rhetoric and regulation. Policing Human Rights breaks new ground by offering one of the first sociologically inspired and empirically grounded accounts of how officers encounter and experience human rights law in their everyday work. The substantive insights and associated arguments of the book are based on unprecedented fieldwork with Police Service of Northern Ireland, including interviews and focus groups with over one hundred police officers, from over twenty police stations and five departments. Adopting an interdisciplinary style of analysis that draws on sociology, anthropology and organizational studies, the book takes the reader on a tour of four sites of policing to expose how and why human rights law comes to be socially constituted, organizationally conditioned and routinely interpreted and applied by police officers. The book offers an insight into the function of human rights law in modern policing, exposing the visions and values police officers' express in their daily narratives, sensemaking and practices.
- ‘Conditions of Protest: Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 Forty Years On’ (2026) Public Law 1-10 (forthcoming)
- 'Environmental Protest, Contention and the Law: Conceptualising the Public Order Act 2023' Journal of Law and Society (Autumn 2025)
- ‘Twenty-five years on the boundary between state and community: revisiting the ‘Impossibility’ of restorative justice and security informalism’, with J. Topping and A. Albert, Policing & Society (2025)
- ‘Convicting Peaceful Protesters: Proportionality’s Proper Place at Criminal Trial’ Oxford Journal of Legal Studies (2024) 44(2) 342-375
- ‘Sentencing for Murder: 20 Years of Schedule 21’, Sentencing Academy, Issues Paper Series (2024)
- ‘Lethal force, legal consciousness and the social field of policing’ Social & Legal Studies (2024) 33(1) 124-137
- 'The Public Order Act 2023', Blackstone’s Briefings (OUP, 2023)
- ‘Policing in Northern Ireland: Research, Meaning and Lessons From a Contested Landscape’ (with J. Topping) in Tong, S. and Martin, D. Introduction to Policing Research: Taking Lessons from Practice (2nd Ed) (Routledge: 2023), 178-198
- ‘Righting the police: How do officers make sense of human rights?’ British Journal of Criminology (2022) 62(3), 551-567
- ‘Administrative Decision-Making on the Frontline’ in The Oxford Handbook of Administrative Justice (eds) Tomlinson, J., Thomas, R. Hertogh, M. and Kirkham R. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022), 1-20
- 'The Protest Provisions of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Court Bill: A “modest reset of the scales”?' (2021) Criminal Law Review, 12, 1008-1028; see also LSE Legal Studies Working Paper 15/2021
- ‘When police kill in the line of duty: mistaken belief, professional misconduct and ethical duties after R(W80)’ (2021) Criminal Law Review, 8, 662-683
- ‘Testing the Limits of the Common Law Right to Trial by Jury: A Critical Analysis of Re Hutchings’ (with K. Laird) (2021) Public Law 88-105
- ‘The Anatomy of Police Legitimacy: Dialogue, Power and Procedural Justice’ Theoretical Criminology (2021) 25 (4), 559-577 (with Ben Bradford)
- ‘Ethno-National Narratives of Human Rights: The Northern Ireland Policing Board’ (2020) Modern Law Review 83 (1) 91-127
- ‘A “Culture of Justification”? Police Interpretation and Application of the Human Rights Act 1998’ in Varuhas, J. and Stark, S. (eds), The Frontiers of Public Law (Oxford, Hart Publishing, 2019)
- ‘Can diversity promote trust? Neighbourhood context and trust in the police in Northern Ireland’ (2019) (with J. Topping, B. Bradford and J. Jackson) 29(9) Policing and Society 1022-1041
- ‘Prosecutorial Discretion, Assisting Offenders and the Decision to Refer Under SOCPA 2005’ [Note] (2018) 134 Law Quarterly Review 542-548
- ‘Speaking Truths to Power: Policy Ethnography and Police Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina, J Blaustein’ [Review] (2018) 58(3) British Journal of Criminology 751-754
- ‘Police, Race and Culture in the 'new Ireland', An Ethnography’, S O’Brien-Ollinger [Review] (2018) 28(3) Policing and Society 376-379
- ‘Instrumental and affective influences on public trust and police legitimacy in Spain’ (2016) 3(4) European Journal of Policing Studies 394-416 (with B. Bradford et al.)
- ‘Informers’ (Criminal Evidence) (2015) Westlaw UK Insight (Legal Encyclopaedia)
- ‘The Recent Supergrass Controversy: Have We Learnt From the Troubled Past?’ (2013) Criminal Law Review 273-289
Teaching
Engagement and impact
Reports
- The Northern Ireland Peace Monitoring Report, No. 6, ‘Dimension Two: Safety and Security’(with J. Topping), Community Relations Council (2024).
- ‘Comments on the Human Rights Committee’s Revised Draft General Comment No. 37 on Article 21(Right of Peaceful Assembly) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights’ with Gunatilleke, G., Lazarus, L., Butler, O., Atrey, S., Theil, S. and Samantani, S. (Oxford, Bonavero Institute of Human Rights, 2020).
- ‘Unauthorised Disclosure of Protected State Information and ‘Whistleblower’ Protections: An Overview of the Law in Five Countries’ (2017) in Protection of Official Data: A Consultation Paper- Appendix A, Law Commission.
- Making and Breaking Barriers: Assessing the value of mounted police units in the UK: Summary report(with C Giacomantonio, B Bradford and Davies M) (Santa Monica, CA, RAND Corporation, 2014)
- The Key Drivers of Public Confidence in Northern Ireland (with J Topping and J Byrne) (Belfast, Northern Ireland Policing Board, 2014).
- The Influence of Politicians, Community Leaders and the Media on Confidence in the Police in Northern Ireland (with J Topping and J Byrne) (Belfast, Northern Ireland Policing Board, 2014).
Online publications
- ‘Counting Cumulative Impact: More Public Order Law Additions’, U.K. Const. L. Blog (22nd October 2025)
- ‘lliberal Britain: The latest amendments to the protest provisions of the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill’Verfassungsblog,29.12.21.
- Global Perspectives on Human Rights, 3rd edn, (with S Areff and V Miyandazi) (Oxford, Oxford Human Rights Hub, 2016) (printed by Hart Publishing).
- Global Perspectives on Human Rights, 2nd edn, (with L Hilly) (Oxford, Oxford Human Rights Hub, 2015) (printed by Oxford University Press).
- ‘High Court in Belfast Finds the Northern Irish Executive Failed its Statutory Duty to Adopt a ‘Strategy’ to Tackle Poverty Based on ‘Objective Need’’ Oxford Human Rights Hub Blog 28/08/15.
- 'The Oxford Centre of Criminology’s Thames Valley Police Seminar 2015'Oxford Centre for Criminology Blog, 30/09/15.
- ‘Thinking about "Re-thinking Police Legitimacy"’ Oxford Centre for Criminology Blog, 24/03/15.
- ‘Northern Ireland’s Human Rights Commission Granted Leave for Judicial Review to Challenge the Country’s Near-Blanket Ban on Abortion’Oxford Human Rights Hub Blog, 09/02/15.
- ‘Nonsense on Stilts? Tommy the Chimp’s Legal Battle for ‘Non-Human Person Rights’ in the New York Courts' Oxford Human Rights Hub Blog15/01/15 andCentre for Criminology Blog 21/01/15.
- ‘Trusting your 'neighbour': Police horses and friendly officers in the search for police legitimacy' Oxford Centre for Criminology Blog, 27/11/14.