IAPDC Panel

Lynn Emslie - Chair

With a career covering acute healthcare, mental health, health in criminal justice and local authority social services, Lynn holds several non-executive director, advisor and trustee roles across the charitable, research and regulatory sector. Focusing on mental health and people with complex needs, Lynn has championed the requirement to improve access to services, based on a person-centred approach, and reduce health inequalities.

Working strategically across the Department of Health and NHS, Lynn worked to inform policy by linking academic research into service development, including the voluntary and private sectors. She has led NHS commissioning and quality monitoring within NHS England, supported the implementation of the Assessment, Care in Custody and Teamwork (ACCT), the care planning process for prisoners at risk of suicide and self-harm, and worked with the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman on Death in Custody clinical reviews.

Since 2017, Lynn has held the role of Trustee at Nacro, a social justice charity. She is Chair of Arc, a homeless charity local to Somerset.

Raj Desai

Raj is a barrister at Matrix Chambers specialising in human rights and public law. He has significant experience representing bereaved family members following deaths in custody, including in prison, police detention and mental health settings. He has conducted research in his fields of specialism, is a co-author of textbooks on human rights law, public law and prison law, and has taught as a college lecturer at the University of Oxford.

Raj advises the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) and other public bodies, and is on both the EHRC Panel of Preferred Counsel and the Attorney General’s Panel of Counsel.

Dr Jake Hard

Jake is a GP with over 16 years’ experience of working in prison and is the Clinical Director in HMP Cardiff. He was the Chair of the RCGP Secure Environments Group from 2016 – 2022 and has published work with the IAPDC. He is also the Clinical Lead for the NHSE Health & Justice Information Service.

Pauline McCabe OBE

As an international criminal justice advisor, Pauline delivers projects in policing and prison reform, oversight and monitoring mechanisms, and death in custody investigation on behalf of UNICEF, Penal Reform International, DFID, and the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights in Europe and Central Asia.

Pauline has investigated deaths, complaints and serious incidents as the Prisoner Ombudsman for Northern Ireland (2008-2013). She is also a visiting Professor at the University of Ulster and was awarded an OBE for services to prisoners’ welfare.

Professor Seena Fazel

Seena is the Professor of Forensic Psychiatry and Director of the Centre for Suicide Research at the University of Oxford. He is an honorary consultant forensic psychiatrist for Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust and works clinically in a local prison. His main research interests are in relation to suicidal behaviour in prisoners, the mental health of prisoners, and risk assessment in criminal justice and mental health.

Ministerial Council on Deaths in Custody (MCDC) Secretariat

The IAPDC is supported by a small secretariat made up of civil servants based in the Ministry of Justice. The Secretariat exists to undertake research, draft documents, liaise with departments and wider stakeholders on behalf of the IAPDC and champion its work. You can contact them here.