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.

Although her caseload at Bhatt Murphy is derived predominately from her specialist area of police law, Carolynn also has a significant caseload in custodial deaths including both self-inflicted deaths and deaths in police and prison custody arising in more controversial circumstances. She is also instructed in a number of cases involving unlawful detention by the immigration service. Carolynn is particularly interested in the experiences of young people caught up in the criminal justice system.

During 2006 Carolynn brought a number of civil claims against the police to a successful conclusion. These included a very substantial award in a claim in negligence, a jury trial and numerous negotiated settlements of between £4,000 and £30,000. She has continued in her endeavours to assist the IPCC in presiding over a fair and effective police complaints system, and in that context has commenced several successful challenges by way of judicial review, including a challenge to the IPCC decision to uphold their rejection of her client’s complaint, on an erroneous application of the requirements for an arrest under s5 of the Public Order Act.

Carolynn also successfully concluded a claim against the Home Office and the Department for Constitutional Affairs which relied on a novel challenge under the Data Protection Act, and she was instructed in two custodial death inquests where the jury heard damning evidence of the care offered to the deceased. The second of these inquests has given rise to an important challenge concerning the scope of the jury verdict in an Article 2 compliant inquest, and in particular whether matters which are relevant to the circumstances of the death but fall outside of the legal chain of causation should be left to the jury.

Carolynn has been with Bhatt Murphy since October 2001. She started with us as a Legal Assistant having just completed the CPE and Legal Practice Course at the College of Law. She subsequently trained at Bhatt Murphy, and has remained with us after qualifying as a solicitor in November 2003.

Before qualifying as a solicitor, Carolynn worked in an educational policy role for a number of years. Her undergraduate degree is a 2:1 BSc (Hons) Psychology, awarded in 1992.

Carolynn is a member of the Police Action Lawyer’s Group and the Inquest Lawyer’s Group.