Personal Biography

I have been teaching, researching and helping students here since 2016. Previously I was at Cambridge, as a Fellow and Director of Studies first of Jesus College (2008-2011), and then Trinity College (2011-2016).

I am also:

  • President of the European Society for Comparative Legal History: esclh.blogspot.com/.
  • an associate member of 6KBW College Hill, a leading set of barristers’ chambers in London specialising in criminal law and related civil and public law work: www.6kbw.com/.
  • a Research Fellow of the Utrecht Centre for Accountability and Liability Law: ucall.rebo.uu.nl/en/.
  • Director of the Institute for European and Comparative Law in the Faculty of Law

I have held visiting positions at institutions including the University of Cape Town, the University of Iowa, the University of Sao Paulo, the University of Göttingen, the University of Sydney and the Max Planck Institute for International and Comparative Private Law, Hamburg.

Research and Teaching

My primary research interest is in the comparative and historical understanding of the relationship between criminal law and tort law. I am interested more generally in criminal law, tort law, comparative law and legal history. My current projects include understanding and explaining where, how, why and when tort and crime interact over time as part of a larger study of how legal systems change.

I teach Criminal law, Tort law, Advanced Criminal law, Roman Law and Legal Methods, and when time permits, Comparative Legal History.

I am fond of the outdoors, good company and a good argument.

My Faculty profile can be found here, including a full list of publications.

Recent Publications include:

Monograph

[2022] Explaining Tort and Crime: Legal Development Across Laws and Legal Systems, 1850-2020 (CUP, 511 pages)

Edited Books

[2021] Blackstone's Statutes on Criminal Law 2019-20 (OUP) (and 5 previous editions)

[2018] Regulating Risk Through Private Law (Intersentia) (including authoring or co-authoring 3 chapters)

[2018] (with B Vogel) The Limits of Criminal Law (Intersentia) (including authoring or co-authoring 9 chapters)

[2016] (with J. Lee & S. Wilson Stark) Fifty Years of the Law Commissions: The Dynamics of Law Reform (Hart).

[2015] Comparing Tort and Crime (CUP) (and authoring or co-authoring 3 chapters)

[2014] Unravelling Tort and Crime (CUP) (and authoring or co-authoring 3 chapters)

[2013] (with D. Ibbetson) Law and Legal Process: Substantive Law and Procedure in English Legal History (CUP).

Articles

[2022] “The contribution of complicity” (2022) 86 Journal of Criminal Law 389-419 referred to by the Court of Appeal in /R v Hussain/ [2023] EWCA Crim 697, [58]-[59].

[2018] “Principals without distinction” [2018] Crim LR 293-317

[2017] “Ever working in practice, but never in theory? The new English law of criminal complicity” [2017] Zeitschrift für die gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft 232-263.

Book Chapters

[2023] ‘Roundabout Law’ in S. Turenne (ed), Essays in Honour of John Bell (CUP, 2023) (11,000 words).

[2022] (with C. Sepúlveda Penna) ‘Participation and Complicity’ in V. Mitseilegas et al. (eds) Elgar Encyclopedia of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (Elgar, 2022) (7,500 words).

[2022] (with M. Pantaleón Díaz) ‘Tort and Crime’ in V. Mitseilegas et al. (eds) Elgar Encyclopedia of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice (Elgar, 2022) (7,500 words).

[2022] (with Frank Meyer) ‘Structures within Criminal Legal Reasoning’ in K. Ambos et al. (eds) Core Concepts in Criminal Law and Criminal Justice vol 2 (CUP, 2021) (17,000 words).

[2021] "Presence of mind and the future of legal history” in C. Häthén et al. (eds) Legal History: Reflecting the Past and the Present, Current Perspectives for the Future (Olin), 38-54.

[2021] “Tort and Crime” in Mauro Bussani & Antony Sebok (eds), Comparative Tort Law: Global Perspectives (Edward Elgar), 84-111.

[2020] S. Taylor, M. Dyson, D. Fairgrieve “Regards comparatifs sur les projets de réforme français et belge. La perspective du droit anglais” , in B. Dubuisson (ed) La réforme de la responsabilité civile en France et en Belgique. Regards croisés et aspects de droit comparé (Bruylant, 2020), 133-152.

[2020] “Beyond anecdote and synecdoche” in W. Ernst and B. Häcker (eds) Collective Judging in Comparative Perspective (Intesentia).

[2020] “Unavoidable procedural questions about tort and crime” in CE Pianovski and N Rosenvald (eds) Novas Fronteiras da responsabilidade civil: direito comparado (Foco).

[2020] “The Queen v C, D and E: In the Supreme Court of Ruritania” in B Krebs (ed) Accessorial Liability after Jogee (Hart).

[2019] “Comparative Legal History: Methodology for Morphology” in Olivier Moréteau et al (eds) Edward Elgar Handbook of Comparative Legal History (Edward Elgar).

[2017] “Remedies of the Criminal Courts” in G. Virgo and S. Worthington (eds), Commercial Remedies: Resolving Controversies (CUP).

[2017] “R v. Hancock and Shankland” in P. Handler, H. Mares and I. Williams (eds), Landmark Cases in the Criminal Law (Hart).

[2017] “Frederick Pollock, The Law of Torts” in Serge Dauchy et al. (eds), The Formation and Transmission of Western Legal Culture: 150 Books that made the law in the Age of Printing (Springer).