Our people

Amber joined INQUEST as a caseworker in 2025. She has a Masters in International Human Rights Law with a focus on the rights of asylum-seekers in the UK. Prior to joining INQUEST, Amber provided legal casework to children and young people in the care and criminal justice system.

Aniesha joined INQUEST as the Grenfell Project Coordinator in October 2021.

Prior to this, Aniesha was a Civil Liberties Paralegal at Birnberg Peirce and Hodge Jones & Allen Solicitors, where she worked on group claims, including Grenfell, Hillsborough and the Lambeth Redress Scheme, inquests and Actions Against the Police cases. She was called to the Bar in 2024 and has an LLM in Human Rights, Conflict and Justice from SOAS.

Aniesha is a Trustee for FORWARD (Foundation for Women’s Health Research and Development), where she has volunteered since 2017.

He/him

Arnaud joined INQUEST in 2017.

Born in France, he came to the UK in 1993 and graduated in politics, global politics and race relations.

Arnaud has worked in social care since 1995, in a variety of roles, including casework and support work and, later on, in management and leadership positions in the charity sector. He worked in HIV/AIDS for eight years and with asylum seekers and refugees for 12 and has also been the managing director of Just for Kids Law, a legal charity supporting young people.

Arnaud is a passionate campaigner on social justice issues, including anti-racism and the rights of refugees and migrants. He is the Deputy Chair of the Separated Child Foundation.

Deborah is the executive director of INQUEST, and has worked for the charity since 1989. She has a long track record of championing social justice and equality issues.  She leads INQUEST's strategic policy, legal and parliamentary work and has considerable expertise in working to prevent death and ill treatment in all forms of detention and for more effective accountable learning after state related deaths.  She has been an independent expert advisor to numerous committees and inquiries and was the special advisor to Dame Elish Angiolini, the chair of the Independent Review of Deaths and Serious Incidents in Police Custody.

Deborah is a regular media commentator, delivers conference papers nationally and internationally and is author of numerous articles and publications. She is a former member of the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody and represents INQUEST as a member of the Ministerial Board on Deaths in Custody; she is also on the board of trustees of Clean Break Theatre Company and an advisor to Women in Prison.

Farah Alblooshi is an experienced frontline caseworker specialising in support for people in prison and young people at risk of violence in the community. She holds an MSc In Development Studies from SOAS,  where she researched the impact of state violence on gender‑based violence in post‑conflict societies.

She has delivered violence‑intervention programmes for young people and provided casework, family support, and holistic assistance to individuals in prison, NHS services and social care settings. Her practice is rooted in trauma‑informed, community‑centred approaches, with a focus on co‑creating solutions alongside the people she supports.

Farah joined the Prisoners Advice Service as a trustee in July 2025.

Jessica has an MPhil in Latin American Studies from the University of Cambridge where she researched police killings in Brazil and maroons in the Dominican Republic. She came to INQUEST from the Institute of Race Relations where she investigated how communities resist police violence.

Jessica leads on INQUEST’s policy around prisons and develops campaigns with her colleagues and bereaved families. She is the author of INQUEST reports, ‘Deaths of racialised people in prison’ and ‘Built to Harm’.

She has written for the Guardian and Huck magazine, and is a contributor at Race and Class journal and various Latin American publications. She is also a filmmaker and was selected for Other Cinemas Film School 2024/25. For INQUEST, she co-produced ‘The UK is Not Innocent’ and made the short documentary ‘Stitched Together’.

Jodie joined INQUEST as a Caseworker in 2020. Prior to this, she practiced as a criminal defence and immigration barrister. She worked on death row in Texas in 2014 and has been involved in the criminal justice system ever since, with particular focus on youth justice and accountability. Jodie joined INQUEST after the death of her cousin at Birmingham prison, and is committed to supporting other bereaved families in their pursuit for justice.

Jodie is an active campaigner for refugee and migrant rights, having been involved in the early work of the charity Refugees at Home. She volunteered as a lawyer in the Greek refugee camps in 2018 and currently volunteers with people seeking asylum at the Hackney Night Shelter. Jodie also volunteers with No More Exclusions, working to build an abolitionist anti-oppressive grassroots movement in education.

She/her

Kate joined INQUEST as a caseworker in 2025. Prior to this, she worked as a paralegal at Hickman & Rose Solicitors, where she worked on inquests and actions against the police and assisted families bereaved by the Grenfell Tower Fire.

Kate is particularly committed to supporting families through inquest processes following her own experience of going through an inquest.  

Leila leads on media and communications at INQUEST. In this role she supports bereaved families to share their stories in the media, and to contribute to systemic change through collective campaigns organised alongside the communications and policy team. She also manages the INQUEST brand, website, social media and publications.

Leila joined INQUEST in 2022. She has an MA in Human Rights Law from SOAS, specialising in queer and feminist legal theory and state violence. 

She was previously the external affairs officer at Working Chance, an employment charity for women with convictions, where she worked across communications and policy.

Mo Mansfield join INQUEST in April 2019. She is a community organiser, advocate and feminist campaigner for prison abolition. Mo has more than 15 years experience working in the voluntary sector in both front-line and management positions at organisations such as Women at WISH, Women In Prison and the Women’s Resource Centre. Much of her work has focused on providing independent support to criminalised women from a social justice perspective.

She is member of the Reclaim Justice Network; Reclaim Holloway; and is co-founder of the Holloway Prison Stories website. Mo was also part of the organising committee for Abolitionist Futures: the International Conference on Penal Abolition held in London in June 2018. Mo recently completed a MSc focused on improving services for people with personality disorders. She is also a Visiting Research Fellow with the Harm and Evidence Research Collaborative at the Open University

Naomi has been leading on INQUEST’s heritage projects for the last three years and is currently coordinating its Unjust Deaths project.

With a background in research, heritage and community engagement she completed her PhD on Caribbean publishing and activism at UCL and the British Library in 2022. With eight years’ experience crossing the cultural heritage and social justice sectors, she is committed to using co-productive heritages practices as a channel to imagine and action more just and equitable futures.

She also works part time at the Centre for Social Justice Research coordinating projects to provide students with social justice work-based learning experiences.

Rob joined INQUEST in 2011 and provides administrative support to the casework team, wider office, and to the INQUEST Lawyers Group. He is also a first point of contact for bereaved people getting in touch with INQUEST. He has previously worked in industry and as a paralegal in the field of human rights and is a committed trade unionist.

Rosanna has worked in INQUEST’s policy team since 2021 where she leads on our parliamentary advocacy and INQUEST’s campaign for a National Oversight Mechanism.

She previously worked for the UK’s National Preventive Mechanism, a body which works to prevent torture and ill treatment in places of detention. 

Prior to this, Rosanna worked in Liberty’s policy and campaigns team. Rosanna is a trustee of the Independent Custody Visiting Association which coordinates volunteers to independently monitor the conditions and wellbeing of individuals in police custody.

Selen joined INQUEST as a caseworker in 2010. She was born in Turkey and lived there until 1990. She graduated in Sociology and Law and then worked at the Refugee Legal Centre for ten years, representing asylum seekers and refugees at Immigration Tribunals. Selen has a special focus on deaths of women in prison and is fully committed to women's issues.

She is trustee of Imece Women’s Centre.

Tanya joined INQUEST as Finance Officer in June 2017. She holds an AAT Accounting Qualification (MAAT) and has previously worked for accountancy practices and SME businesses. Tanya is also currently working for Learning on Screen . She joined INQUEST as an opportunity to do finance work which supports social justice.

Chris has more than 25 years of experience working in Human Resources which includes 20 years at senior management level at organisations including The Refugee Council and Greenpeace UK.  Largely working in unionised environments, Chris developed constructive and respectful consultation and employee relations processes, reflecting the values of the organisation. 

Chris studied at the Open University obtaining a BSC Hons and later qualified at the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. She was a trustee (with particular responsibility for HR), for seven years at a medium sized charity supporting street homelessness, until 2015. 

Daniel joined the Board of Trustees of INQUEST in 2007. He qualified as a solicitor in 1998 and is a partner and head of the civil litigation department at London law firm Hickman & Rose. He specialises in civil litigation on behalf of people who have suffered wrongs at the hands of the criminal justice system and has brought many successful claims against the Ministry of Justice, Home Office and police.

He has represented many families at inquests following contentious deaths and is a co-author of the Legal Action Group book ‘Inquests – A Practitioners Guide’ (2015, 3rd edition). He co-authors a regular inquest law update in Legal Action magazine. Daniel also works for victims of war crimes, torture and crimes against humanity, helping them seek prosecutions in the UK and elsewhere under the principle of universal criminal jurisdiction for such crimes. He is a trustee of Legal Action Worldwide, which helps gain access to justice for those who need it most in fragile and conflict-affected states.

Daniel was chair of the INQUEST board for ten years until February 2022.

Diane’s background is in psychology and counselling developing group and individual programmes. She has worked in the criminal justice sector for over 20 years including Turning Point, London Probation (as it was then called) and most recently at the Mayor’s Office for Policing And Crime for over eight years where she led on Health (specifically mental health and wider vulnerabilities). She has worked extensively with young people, women and more recently adult males in a forensic setting. Diane holds an MSc in Forensic Mental Health and has been a Magistrate since 2019.  

Diane was chair of the INQUEST board from February 2022 to April 2025.

Doug, a retired veterinary surgeon and business owner, joined the Inquest Board and Family Reference Group in April 2023.

His daughter, Stephanie, unexpectedly died in 2016 in an NHS-funded mental health hospital, 125 miles from home.

He is a co-founder of The LEARN Network, has qualifications in mental health first aid and suicide prevention, and is an ASIST Trainer. He is a passionate advocate for the use of Lived Experience to shape learning which can improve policies, systems and practice, and organisations as a whole.

Geraldine is a thoroughly experienced finance director and manager, having joined the Board of Trustees in 2009. Her previous work experience includes the Queen’s Nursing Institute, the Dystonia Society and Reach Volunteering. 

Joe Sim Is Professor of Criminology and Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and Social Exclusion at Liverpool John Moores University. He was a member of Radical Alternatives to Prison and has written a number of books on prisons including British Prisons (with Mike Fitzgerald), Medical Power in Prisons and Punishment and Prisons.

Marcia Rigg is an activist and campaigner on issues which impact families and their personal lived experiences following a controversial death in state custody, particularly police deaths following restraint, mental health and the criminal justice process.

Marcia spearheads the United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC), a coalition of families whose loved ones have died following a state related death across the UK in police custody, prisons and mental health units. She has been working with INQUEST since the death of her brother Sean in 2008 and is a member of our Family Reference Group.

Marcia is one of the 100 Great Black Britons 2020.

Patrick joined the INQUEST Board of Trustees in 2021. He is a Senior Lecturer at Manchester Metropolitan University, and undertakes research and publishes in the area of 'race' and ethnicity, with a particular focus on racial disparity, disproportionality and differential treatment within the Criminal Justice System.

Patrick also advises and supports the development of interventions premised upon the principles of empowerment for a number of local and regional statutory and Voluntary and Community Sector organisations. In conjunction with colleagues in the Policy Evaluation and Research Unit (PERU - MMU), he was involved in the evaluation of short-term prisoner resettlement projects delivered by HMP Manchester and HMP Preston.

Pete joined the board in March 2018. Pete is a human rights barrister who practices domestically in public inquiries, inquests, criminal, public, prison and police law. Pete led the team representing 22 of the bereaved Hillsborough families at the new inquests, and continues to act for them in a number of matters, including their campaign to get the Public Authorities (Accountability) Bill 2017(Hillsborough Law) enacted (see www.thehillsboroughlaw.com). Since the conclusion of the Hillsborough inquests, Pete has appeared for the partner of Anthony Grainger at the Public Inquiry into his death (a police shooting) and advised lawyers for the victims of the Grenfell disaster.

Rajiv joined the board of INQUEST in 2016, having been a supporter of the organisation for many years. He is a barrister and King’s Counsel at Garden Court Chambers, specialising in criminal defence, inquests, police actions and other related criminal justice work. He is particularly interested in cases involving human rights violations, miscarriages of justice, political protest and the abuse of power by the state. He was junior counsel for Dwayne Brooks at the Stephen Lawrence Public Inquiry, a landmark event in the history of race relations in the UK. He has represented many families of those who died in custody, including the families of Mikey Powell, Paul Coker and Adam Rickwood. More recently, he was leading counsel for ten of the bereaved families at the new inquests into the deaths of 96 Liverpool football supporters who were unlawfully killed at Hillsborough stadium. Rajiv is committed to holding power to account in the courts, in our communities and on the streets.

Dr Rebecca Montacute joined the INQUEST board in April 2023. Her mother, Julie, died in 2018 following several failures in the mental health care she received. Rebecca was supported by INQUEST throughout her efforts to uncover those failures, and previously worked together with the charity to release figures on state funding for lawyers at mental health inquests. Rebecca is the Head of Research and Policy at the Sutton Trust, an education charity. 

Ruth’s background is in race relations and criminal defence. Her first Inquest experience was judicially reviewing the Leeds Coroner concerned with the death of Helen Smith, a nurse in Jeddah, and winning the right for inquests to be held into the deaths of British nationals abroad. She continued to represent families from 1990 onwards following  deaths in custody, despite a lack of funding, and acted in the Jamieson inquest where further higher court proceedings led to verdict restrictions. She still represents Janet Alder whose brother Christopher died on the floor of Hull Police Station, and continues to act in prison and police station deaths. She was recently involved in the Hillsborough Inquests on behalf of three families.

Steve Tombs is Professor of Criminology at The Open University. He has a long-standing interest in the incidence, nature and regulation of corporate and state crime and harm. He has long worked with the Hazards movement and the Institute of Employment Rights, and was a founding member and Chair of the Centre for Corporate Accountability (1999-2009).

He joined INQUEST as a Trustee and Board member in 2014, and became Chair in 2025.

Benjamin Zephaniah was an award-winning poet, novelist, musician and actor who also presented documentaries and penned radio and stage plays. In 2008, he was included in Britain’s top 50 post-war writers by The Times.

His work explored themes of race, politics and culture and as well as his Jamaican heritage and personal experience of imprisonment and racism.

A poet-in-residence at the Chambers of Michael Mansfield KC, which involved following the Stephen Lawrence inquiry and the Ricky Reel case, he was inspired to write ‘Too Black, Too Strong’, a poetry book which addresses the struggles of Black Britain and the legal system.

Benjamin stood in solidarity with bereaved families and was a longtime friend, supporter and patron of INQUEST. When his cousin died in police custody, alongside his family he established the Friends of Mikey Powell Campaign for Justice and commented on the sad irony of how he had gone from supporting to being supported by INQUEST.

His loss is deeply felt by INQUEST and bereaved families. In 2024, Benjamin's siblings founded the Benjamin Zephaniah Family Legacy Group to ensure his legacy is celebrated. 

Picture credit: David Morris

Linton Kwesi Johnson is an acclaimed reggae poet, activist and recording artist of Jamaican heritage. During his adolescence in South London, he became increasingly conscious of police brutality against Black people.

Whilst at school, he joined the Black Panther movement which motivated him to speak out about the racial injustice he witnessed. After graduating he began experimenting with spoken word and reggae, which led to him being widely considered as the first ‘dub poet’.

He has since performed all over the world. His work confronts topics including the deaths of young Black men in police custody, police and government corruption, and deportation.

His seminal debut album, ‘Dread, Beat an’ Blood’, recorded in Patois, derived from his poetry anthology of the same name.

He has also worked in journalism, having reported for Channel 4 and serving as the arts editor for the influential Brixton-based Race Today magazine.

In 2002 Linton Kwesi Johnson became only the second living poet and the first Black poet to have his work published in Penguin's Modern Classics series, under the title ‘Mi Revalueshanary Fren’.

He was awarded a Musgrave medal by the Institute of Jamaica for eminence in the field of poetry and won the PEN Pinter Prize in 2020.

Sanah Ahsan is an award-winning poet, writer, liberation psychologist and educator. Sanah works in the cracks, revering our messy emotional landscapes, and the wild edges of falling apart.

Their psychological practice is rooted in liberation and community psychology, drawing on embodiment, therapeutics and poetics as life-affirming practices, to support racialised and marginalised people.

Sanah's work centres compassion and embracing each other's madness; they have written for The Guardian and presented a Channel 4 documentary on the over-medicalisation of people’s distress.

Sanah is the lead liberation psychologist at several community and justice-led organisations, such as Art Against Knives and Beyond Equality.

Sanah is working on a non-fiction book about the politics of distress, and society’s relationship with unruly emotions. Sanah’s debut poetry collection ‘I cannot be good until You say it’ is forthcoming with Bloomsbury in March 2024. 

My son Jack Susianta died in 2015 after being chased by the police, causing him to jump into a canal, where he was watched drowning by a large crowd who were held back. He had previously suffered a drug-induced psychotic episode and been taken to Homerton Hospital A&E where he was subjected to a high level of restraint by police officers.

After Jack's death our caseworker from INQUEST was the only person amongst the myriad authorities involved that we could trust. She became a very important person for us through the inquest process, giving us sound advice as well as compassion.

Later through INQUEST, I met other family members and gained strength and solidarity from them.  I have made so many new friends at INQUEST, who understand what our family has been through. Projects and events organised by INQUEST have helped me feel positive in making Jack's story heard,  and I have gained strength in making a difference and searching for social and structural change.

My brother Tommy Nicol took his own life in prison in 2015, six years into an indeterminate IPP sentence.  

Indeterminate sentences were abolished in 2012 but not retrospectively. The detrimental harms of these sentences are well known and there was an abhorrent lack of care concerning Tommy’s deteriorating mental health due to the IPP sentence. He was left alone and distressed in an unfurnished cell, already two years over his sentence.

At the inquest a forensic psychiatrist said he was almost certain that the IPP sentence more than minimally contributed to Tommy's death.

I'm a retired veterinary surgeon and business owner, and joined the Inquest Board and Family Reference Group in April 2023.

My daughter, Stephanie, unexpectedly died in 2016 in an NHS-funded mental health hospital, 125 miles from home.

I am a co-founder of The LEARN Network, has qualifications in mental health first aid and suicide prevention, and is an ASIST Trainer. I am a passionate advocate for the use of Lived Experience to shape learning which can improve policies, systems and practice, and organisations as a whole.

I have been working with INQUEST since the death of my brother Matthew in 2018 who died a wholly preventable death at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield following a short and acute period of mental ill health.

Following his death, I accessed advice from INQUEST to navigate the complex and disorientating process of post death investigation.

I am now part of  INQUEST’s Family Reference Group where bereaved families come together to support each other, campaign for the rights of bereaved people and attempt to ensure that inquests and other post death investigations lead to meaningful change.

I am also a PhD student at the University of Lancaster. My research focuses on how coroners communicate their concerns in Prevention of Future Deaths Reports and the current efficacy of these reports in reducing avoidable harm and death.

My brother Sean Rigg died in 2008 following restraint by multiple police officers while experiencing a mental health crisis. The jury returned a four-page litany of failures by South London & Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust, the police officers and others.

When Sean died back in 2008, if it wasn't for INQUEST and their lawyers my family would have been totally unaware of the huge stumbling blocks we were to face with the whole process of losing a loved one in State Custody.

Frankly, it is impossible for any family to work without them! They have been a saving grace and so it is an honour to sit on their Family Reference Group, not least because it is important that families’ voices are heard jointly with INQUEST in the struggle for equal rights and justice. Families are too often wrongfully left as victims, indefinitely.

My daughter Jess died whilst in the care of mental health services in a crisis house in Bristol in October 2020. At that moment our lives were turned upside down. 

In the midst of unimaginable grief, and desperate to discover what had happened, we were thrown into a complex inquest process of which we had no knowledge, and were not equipped to navigate. 

Our caseworker at INQUEST was incredibly kind and supportive, she ensured that the inquest was delayed so that the facts of what happened would be properly investigated, and she found lawyers who worked incredibly hard on our behalf.

I will always be grateful that INQUEST was there to provide us with support at the very worst of times. Getting to know the wonderful staff and some of the other families affected by state related death, has been the only positive in this dreadful experience. I want to give something back in any way I can, to support others and to campaign for change so that there are fewer preventable deaths, and this cycle of misery is broken.

In 1985, my mother Dorothy Cherry Groce was shot and paralysed by police officers following an ill planned dawn raid on her home. She died in 2011. The jury found that the shot resulted in medical complications leading to Cherry’s death.

The journey that I and my family have been on has been a very long and strenuous one. At times we did feel as though we were fighting a losing battle but whenever we began to feel consumed, we remembered the fight that mum faced for 26 years, drew strength from it, and persevered. I want to encourage other despairing families to seek the truth and find justice in their own battles.

My daughter Katharine (Kate) died in March 2015 whilst an inpatient at The Dene Psychiatric Hospital in West Sussex. Kate died of sudden heart failure alone in the middle of the night and, although she had been previously physically unwell, staff had failed to check on her and their eventual attempts to resuscitate her proved too late.

Kate’s inquest finally took place in November 2019, delayed by a fruitless police investigation into both Kate’s and 2 other female patients deaths at The Dene in 2015.

Despite a career in both the statutory and non statutory voluntary and community sector, I had no comprehension of the minefield that is the inquest process following the death of a loved one whilst in the care of the state. Without INQUEST, our case-worker and a successful bid for Exceptional Case Funding, we would never have been able to navigate the 4 years of countless pre-inquest reviews and 3 changes of Coroner.

I am now keen to be able to give whatever support I can to other families and their loved ones who are on this torturous journey.