Helena Kennedy

Barrister and broadcaster

Helena Kennedy was called to the Bar in 1972 after studying law at the Council of Legal Education, London. She has participated in many of the highest-profile British legal cases of recent times, including the Brighton bombing trial, the Guildford Four appeal, and the bombing of the Israeli Embassy. Her primary focus is criminal law, and she is heavily involved with judicial review, public inquiries, and discrimination work. She has also chaired a number of Commissions of Inquiry, including those of Violence in Penal Institutions for Young People, health, environmental and safety aspects of the Atomic Weapons Establishment at Aldermaston, and Sudden Infant Death.

Kennedy currently chairs the Human Genetics Commission, and is also a member of the World Bank Institute's External Advisory Council and the board of the British Museum. She also acts as Vice-President of both the Haldane Society and the Association of Women Barristers. She has also worked as a journalist for a variety of media, including the television series Blind Justice and Raw Deal on Medical Negligence. She received the Women's Network Award in 1992, the UK Woman of Europe Award in 1995, and in 1997 gained the Lifetime Achievement in the Law Award from The Times newspaper. She was the Spectator's Parliamentarian of the Year in 2000, and was awarded a life peerage in 1997 (as Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws), and has numerous honorary law degrees from institutions such as the Universities of Leicester and Aberdeen.

Kennedy’s books are Just Law (2005), Eve Was Framed: Women and British Justice (1993), and It Could Have Been You (1998, with Merlyn Nuttall).