Carolynn Gallwey

Carolynn Gallwey is a solicitor in our police law department, specialising in civil actions and complaints against police and inquest work arising from deaths in police and/or prison custody.

Carolynn has been with Bhatt Murphy since October 2001, and was admitted as a solicitor in November 2003. In that time she has concluded in excess of 60 cases involving the police and other detaining authorities, including complaints against police, private law claims and judicial review proceedings.

Carolynn’s private law caseload has covered the full spread of cases involving malicious prosecution, assault, negligence, discrimination, deaths in custody and even a case for breach of the DPA leading to a false imprisonment. She was also one of the solicitors at the firm involved in a large multi-party action against the Home Office arising out of their failure to provide appropriate treatment to opiate-addicted prisoners which concluded in 2006 but which has led to a further, even larger claim, in which Carolynn is also closely involved. Carolynn’s other concluded private law cases include:

• A claim in negligence against the police which settled out of court for nearly £134,000
• A claim primarily for assault, malicious procurement of a search warrant and false imprisonment, which went to a full trial and concluded in the Claimant’s favour with an award of £10,000 damages
• A claim against police for assault, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution in which the Claimant suffered psychiatric damage, and which settled out of court in the sum of just over £50,000.
• An HRA/negligence claim arising out of a death in custody of a female prisoner withdrawing from opiates who was not properly cared for, and which settled for £20,000.
• A free-standing HRA claim for breach of Article 8 arising out of a police raid on the Claimant’s home which settled for £3,000.
• Several claims against police for false imprisonment and racial discrimination, which settled for between £3,000 and £15,750.
• A number of claims for false imprisonment by the Immigration Service, which have settled for between £5,000 and £32,000.
• A miscarriage of justice claim worth close to £1.5m.

She has also acted in numerous complaints against the police, both in the context of civil compensation claims and in free-standing complaints. In the course of that work she has initiated several challenges by way of judicial review against the IPCC and has even managed to have some complaints upheld!

Carolynn continues to represent the families of those who have lost their lives in police and prison custody. In that context she has made extensive representations to the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman, the police and the IPCC and has gained considerable experience of prison death inquests in particular.

She is a member of the Inquest Lawyers Group and the Police Action Lawyers Group.