Caroline is a solicitor in our Public Law and Human Rights team. She is an experienced solicitor representing individuals, NGOs, unions, businesses and charities in a range of public law matters and in civil claims against public authorities. She has expertise in judicial review, complaints and regulatory matters, and her varied practice includes discrimination, human rights, community care and data protection law.
Caroline regularly advises people who may face stigmatising and career-threatening consequences because of the way public authorities hold and process information about them. She represents teachers, youth workers and other regulated professionals challenging decisions by the police and the Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) to retain and share criminal record information. She also represents clients seeking the deletion of police cautions, Police National Computer records and locally held police data.
Caroline is experienced in advising survivors of domestic abuse on using the Victims’ Right to Review scheme to challenge CPS and police failures to prosecute.
In addition, Caroline has expertise in bringing complaints on behalf of individuals, pressure groups and companies to ombudsmen and regulators, and advising on related public law issues.
Caroline also has a particular interest in judicial review challenges concerning those subject to immigration control, including in respect of local authority accommodation and support for young people under the Children Act and Leaving Care Act. She also challenges asylum support decisions and brings judicial reviews and civil claims arising from detention until immigration powers.
Education and career
- Caroline graduated from the University of Bristol in 2006 with a first-class BSc in Politics
- Whilst studying for her GDL (Distinction) at the University of the West of England she volunteered at Avon and Bristol Law Centre
- She completed her LPC (Distinction) in July 2013 and was awarded a prize by the Bristol Institute of Legal Practice for her performance on the course
- Before joining Bindmans, Caroline worked as an immigration and asylum casework assistant at a firm in West London, assisting solicitors in preparing judicial review and Court of Appeal cases
- Before that, she worked as a legal assistant at the Immigration Advisory Service and volunteered with Student Action for Refugees
- Caroline joined Bindmans as a paralegal in 2012, training with the firm and qualifying as a solicitor in 2015
Experience
Caroline has experience in a broad range of public law and discrimination matters and regularly advises on claims for damages under the Human Rights Act and the Equality Act
Her current judicial review/appeals work includes:
- Representing the National Union of Journalists as an intervener in Liberty v Secretary of State for the Home Department and Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs – a judicial review challenge, now under appeal to the Court of Appeal, challenging the ‘bulk powers’ regime in the Investigatory Powers Act 2016, known as ‘the Snoopers Charter’
- Judicial review proceedings including a claim for damages under the Human Rights Act, on behalf of a disabled asylum seeker placed in inappropriate hotel accommodation by the Home Office
- Representing a foreign government department as a respondent to an appeal in the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council
Her current civil claims work includes:
- Representing a vulnerable disabled child in civil proceedings for damages for assault/battery and under the Human Rights Act following abuse in a children’s home
- Representing asylum seekers who were accommodated by the Home Office in the disused Napier army barracks who are pursuing a civil claim for damages for false imprisonment and breaches of the Human Rights Act and Equality Act
Her regulatory work includes:
- Advising on a complex complaint to the Charity Commission concerning significant misconduct by an educational trust
- Advising regulated professionals about disclosure of information from criminal records on Enhanced Criminal Record Certificates
- Representing a hospital worker in an appeal to the First-tier Tribunal against a Disclosure and Barring Service decision to bar him from working with children and vulnerable adults
- Advising a medical practitioner on the deletion of a caution from the Police National Computer
- Jointly advising an organisation in proposed judicial review proceedings against the Financial Ombudsman Service, concerning redress for mis-selling and poor advice by independent financial advisers
- Representing a teacher challenging a finding by a ‘Local Authority Designated Officer’ that an allegation of misconduct against him has been ‘substantiated’
Her current work with concerning gender-based violence includes:
- Representing survivors of domestic abuse using the Victim’s Right to Review process to challenge decisions not to prosecute their abusers
- Representing the family of a murdered young woman in an inquest into her death, and in an associated civil claim against an NHS Trust and the Ministry of Justice
Her community care work includes:
- Representing a number of unaccompanied asylum-seeking children challenging local authority age assessments and securing accommodation and support under the Children Act 1989
- Advising care leavers on their rights and entitlements under the Leaving Care Act
- Judicial review proceedings challenging a local authority’s flawed Care Act assessment
Caroline’s other experience includes:
- Jointly representing a group of EU citizens in judicial review proceedings concerning the lawfulness of the voter registration process for the 2019 European Parliament elections, including an appeal to the Court of Appeal and an application to the European Court of Human Rights
- Jointly representing the Transnational Government of Tamil Eelam in a successful appeal to the Proscribed Organisations Appeal Commission concerning the designation of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam as a terrorist organisation
- Representing the family of a young man who died in the care of a psychiatric hospital in inquest proceedings and in an associated civil claim for damages
- Jointly advising a commercial organisation following regulatory action by the Education and Skills Funding Agency
- Representing a victim of sexual assault by a medical professional, ensuring an Article 3-compliant investigation was held
- Representing a protestor in proposed judicial review proceedings challenging the Court’s failure to adjourn his trial during the Covid-19 pandemic
- Advisory work for industry representatives seeking to challenge the government’s Coronavirus regulations
- Representing students in appeals to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator
- Jointly representing a not-for-profit organisation in a challenge to a local authority’s procurement process
- Securing significant damages for a victim of race discrimination by a well-known company in proposed proceedings under the Equality Act
- Representing a refugee in a judicial review challenging his unlawful detention by the Home Office
