Alison Gerry

Alison Gerry specialises in prison law, mental health, actions against the police, inquests and related public law. Alison Gerry also has particular expertise in international human rights law, and the European Convention on Human Rights. She has conducted human rights training on behalf of the Council of Europe, in Albania, Turkey and in Serbia, and for the British Council and for the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

Her expertise are now regularly noticed and listed in Chambers and Partners directory:

Alison Gerry's recent notable cases include the House of Lords case of Van Colle and another v Chief Constable of the Hertfordshire Police (Secretary of State for the Home Department and others intervening) [2008] 3 WLR 593 in which she was junior counsel for the NGO interveners. The joined cases concerned claims in negligence and breaches of Article 2 where the police were alleged to have failed to protect the lives of the victims of crimes. She has also recently appeared as junior counsel in the Privy Council in Atain Takitota v. The (1) Attorney General, (2) The Director of Immigration (3) Minister of National Security, Appeal No 71 of 2007, where she represented a Petitioner who had been unlawfully detained for over 8 years in prison in the Bahamas. In Iqbal v. POA in the Leeds County Court she successfully represented the claimant (a serving prisoner) who brought a claim against the Prison Officers Association (POA) for false imprisonment following the unlawful strike action of members of the POA in the summer of 2007.

Alison Gerry was also junior counsel in the successful group litigation claim against the Home office concerning the treatment of opiate dependant prisoners, in which the Home Office conceded liability in negligence, breach of human rights and assault. She is now instructed in a second round of the litigation. Alison Gerry is also junior counsel in a group litigation claim being brought by nearly 30,000 claimants in the Ivory Coast for personal injuries following the dumping of toxic waste at various sites in Abijan, Ivory Coast.

Her public law work includes challenges on behalf of prisoners (on issues of discipline, parole, recall, and conditions of detention), as well as community care and mental health and inquest cases. She was junior counsel in the case of R (on the application of B) v (1) SS (Responsible Medical Officer) (2) Second Opinion Appointed Doctor (3) Secretary Of State For The Department Of Health (2006) 1 WLR 810 (challenge to the forcible treatment of mentally capacitated detained patients) and represented the family in Paul Anthony Howlett v HM Coroner For Devon & (1) Mr Holcroft (2) Mrs Holcroft (2006) [2006] EWHC 2570 (Admin) (application for fresh inquest on the grounds of insufficiency of inquiry).

Alison has also appeared in the Privy Council in death penalty cases, including in Boyce & Joseph v R (2005) 1 AC 400 (challenge to the mandatory death penalty in Barbados) and successfully before the Inter American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica. She is also now advising African lawyers who are bringing similar challenges to the death penalty in Malawi, Uganda, Nigeria, Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia.
Before joining Doughty Street, Alison Gerry was the Human Rights Adviser to the Consular Directorate at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Alison Gerry has also worked as a caseworker at the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex taking cases to the European Court of Human Rights and worked on the Human Rights Project at JUSTICE. She is an officer and executive committee member of the Human Rights Lawyers Association.

Alison Gerry is co-author of the Butterworth's New Law Guide to the Mental Capacity Act 2005, which was published in June 2008.

In July 2007 Alison was awarded the LAPG Young legal aid barrister of the year award and in December 2006 she was also short listed for the Peter Duffy Award (formerly the Young Human Rights Lawyer of the Year Award). She was nominated for "her tenacity and dedication to grassroots human rights issues", and "for her work in representing vulnerable people and for her battles on behalf of the families of prisoners and mental health patients who have died in detention".

Year of Call

2003

Education

LLB (First Class), LLM International Human Rights Law (Distinction), Princess Royal Scholar Inner Temple

Email Address

a.gerry@doughtystreet.co.uk

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Specialist Teams

Member :

• Actions Against the police
• Human Rights
• International Law Group
• Mental Health
• Prisoner's Rights
• Public and Administrative Law