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On sabbatical leave this term.
Laura Hoyano graduated from the University of Alberta in Canada with two degrees in medieval history before being converted to law, receiving a JD (Gold Medallist) from the University of Alberta. She was called to the Alberta Bar in 1983 and practised commercial, insurance and catastrophic personal injury law for 10 years, interrupted by a sabbatical year in 1990-91 to read for the B.C.L. at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1994 she decided to return to academic life, moving to England to accept an academic appointment at the Law Faculty of the University of Bristol. In 1999 she was elected to a Tutorial Fellowship and CUF Lectureship at Wadham College in Oxford, where she teaches Tort Law, European Human Rights, Medical Law and Ethics and Evidence. In 2009 she was elected as a Fellow of the Honourable Society of the Middle Temple, with an advisory role concerning the enhancement of diversity at the English Bar. She has conducted empirical research for the Crown Prosecution Service and the Home Office on prosecutorial decision making and on child abuse prosecutions. She chairs the Independent Advisory Committee on Child Maltreatment convened by Action for Children, which drafted a new offence of child maltreatment which is currently before Parliament. In December 2012 she was invited by the Verma Committee on Amendments to the Criminal Law, appointed as a consequence of the furore sparked by a gang rape and murder in December 2012, to advise them on reform of substantive sexual assault offences for adults, children and other vulnerable persons, and a range of issues pertaining to more effective trials of such offences, including special measures for vulnerable witnesses, her contribution being acknowledged in the Report and in the national press conference held by Chief Justice Verma. She has recently been consulted by Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabularies and the NSPCC with regard to their enquiries into the investigation of sexual abuse allegations against Jimmy Savile. She is also frequently consulted by the Ministry of Justice, the Crown Prosecution Service and the Criminal Bar Association on a range of issues relating to child abuse and exploitation prosecutions.
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Laura Hoyano, Allan Hoyano, Gwynn Davis and Shelagh Goldie, 'A Study of the Impact of the Revised Code for Crown Prosecutors' [1997] [1997] Criminal Law Review 556 [...]
Reports on the results of an empirical research study commissioned by the Crown Prosecution Service on how Crown prosecutors use the Code for Crown Prosecutors to make decisions regarding a range of offences, using the evidential and public interest criteria.
Laura Hoyano and others, An Assessment of the Admissibility and Sufficiency of Evidence in Child Abuse Prosecutions (Home Office, United Kingdom Government 1999) [...]
This reports the findings of a qualitative empirical research study commissioned by the Home Office in 1997, to investigate the extent to which cases of alleged sexual, physical and emotional abuse or neglect are not prosecuted because the evidence gathered during the investigation are deemed insufficient or inadmissible. The study examined how that evidence is collected and evaluated in each of the three phases of a criminal prosecution: the interagency investigation, the assessment by the Crown Prosecution Service, and the trial.The study also provides a comparative survey of measures to facilitate the taking of children's evidence in other jurisdictions, in particular in Canada, United States, New Zealand and Australia.
ISBN: 1-84082-357-7
Laura Hoyano and C Keenan, Child Abuse: Law and Policy Across Boundaries (OUP 2007) [...]
This book examines the whole process of child protection from complaint investigation to prosecution in the criminal and civil courts. It provides a coherent analysis of current law and procedure across the legal and geographical boundaries within which legal discussion of child abuse is usually confined, analysing criminal, family, tort, human rights and evidence law as they bear on child abuse cases. Comparative material is drawn from over 75 jurisdictionsusing the adversarial trial model. The book was awarded the first Inner Temple Book Prize (2008). The paperback edition is updated in English law, including the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 enacted on 12 November 2009.
ISBN: 978-0-19-829946-2
Laura Hoyano and C Keenan, Child Abuse: Law and Policy Across Boundaries (OUP 2010) [...]
This book examines the whole process of child protection from complaint investigation to prosecution in the criminal and civil courts. It provides a coherent analysis of current law and procedure across the legal and geographical boundaries within which legal discussion of child abuse is usually confined, analysing criminal, family, tort, human rights and evidence law as they bear on child abuse cases. Comparative material is drawn from over 75 jurisdictionsusing the adversarial trial model. The book was awarded the first Inner Temple Book Prize (2008). The paperback edition is updated in English law, including the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 enacted on 12 November 2009.
ISBN: 978-0-19-957156-7
Laura Hoyano and Dr Eileen Vizard, 'Child Defendants and Neuroscience' (2013) (forthcoming) [...]
This article will explore recent developments in neuroscience which show that the normal adolescent brain does not fully develop in its capacity to appreciate consequences and assume full responsibility for conduct until many years past the age of criminal responsibility, currently 10 in England and Wales. The article will advocate that England and Wales should move to the Scottish Children's Hearing System, which offers an integrated service to offending children who are deemed to be children in need to address their offending behaviour and its root causes without criminalisation.
Teaching: Criminal Law; Evidence; Tort; Medical Law and Ethics; Human Rights Law
Research: Tort Law, Evidence, Human Rights, Medical Law & Ethics, Criminal Law
