My research – an overview

Policing and The Media

Crime and Investigative Reporting in the UK

Media Representations of Police and Crime: Shaping the Police Television Drama

My academic articles

Book chapters in edited collections

My non-academic articles

Reports

Podcasts

Theatre and Television Work – writing, acting and researching

News and events

Contact

Hello!

Welcome to my website and let me tell you a little bit about myself.

I am a writer, researcher, playwright and Royal Literary Fund Fellow. My academic and non-fiction work looks at how media representations of the police help to shape our understanding of the police’s role in society; but also how those representations can blind us to some of the harms the police inflict on Black, Brown and other marginalised communities.

I have written three books on this subject to date. These are:  Media Representations of Police and Crime: Shaping The Television Drama (Palgrave 2014); Crime and Investigative Reporting in the UK (Policy Press 2022) and Policing and The Media (Routledge 2026). You can find more information on each book on this website along with details of how to order.

I’m currently Honorary Fellow in Criminology in the Department of Law at Edinburgh University and a Royal Literary Fund Fellow at St. Mary’s University, Twickenham. Alongside my work as an academic researcher, I work with law students at Edinburgh and students and staff across all disciplines at St. Mary’s, helping them to articulate complex ideas with clarity and precision. I’ve also taught criminology at Oxford, LSE and Kent.

Before I became an academic, I was a television scriptwriter for 13 years. I was a staff writer on The Bill for seven years – hence my obsession with media representations of the police! I was a staff writer on the soap opera, Brookside, for two years and one of my  episodes was nominated for a BAFTA. I also wrote episodes for The Vet and Peak Practice. I have written for theatre and my work has been staged at the National Theatre Studio, King’s Head Theatre Club and the Edinburgh Fringe.

Part of the reason I applied for a Royal Literary Fund Fellowship was the fact that it’s a scheme that believes in writers and helping them with time and money to work on new projects. I’ve used my Fellowship to finish my third book but also to bring the two sides of my career together to work on a new play – first time I’ve written a script in 20 years. Watch this space!