On Friday 4 March 2016

at

THE MERCHANTS’ HALL

The Promenade, Clifton, Bristol, BS8 3NH

Fizz reception with canapés

Delicious 4 course meal plus coffee (details below)

Wines (sparkling, red and white), specially selected to complement the food, included in the ticket price

Catering by Fosters

 After Dinner Speaker:- Nazir Afzal OBE

 Inclusive ticket price:-

Members                                     £72 (or non-drinker £62)

Members’ first guest                    £72 (or non-drinker £62)

Additional non-member guests     £77(or non-drinker £67)

~ Strictly black tie ~ Start 7.15pm ~ Carriages 11.45pm ~

For more information, please CLICK HERE

To view the menu and apply for tickets, please CLICK HERE

Professor David Nutt (Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology, Imperial College London)

 ‘Legal Highs’

For more information, please click HERE.

Dr Robert Spencer (Consultant in Public Health & Infectious Diseases)

‘Ebola: Just a rumble in the jungle?’

For our second meeting this season, we have Dr Robert Spencer, Consultant in Public Health & Infectious Diseases.

For more information, click HERE.

Welcome to the new BMLS Season!

For our first meeting of the new season, we have Professor Lois Bibbings, Professor of Law, Gender and History at Bristol University.

Based at the Law School, she is an honorary member of staff in the Centre for Ethics in Medicine at the University of Bristol. She studied at Cardiff University as an undergraduate and postgraduate. Her research focuses upon Law, Gender and History. She has written about violence, sexuality and the body as well as widening participation policy. An interest in men, masculinities and history is reflected in her work on conscientious objectors to military service.

Binding Men: Stories about Violence and Law in Late Victorian England focuses upon five late nineteenth century legal cases involving different forms of male violence (child abuse, prize fighting, murder and cannibalism, sexual assault and ‘wife torture’). She is currently working on articles and a book on WW1 as well as researching the suffragette movement.

She heads the Legal Practice, Criminal, Family and Medical Law Primary Unit within the Law School, which is comprised of staff working in these areas. She spends part of her time working with local school pupils and college students in projects run with the University’s Widening Participation and Student Recruitment Office. Amongst other things, she is an Associate Editor of the Journal of Law and Society, a member of the ESRC Peer Review College and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy.

See HERE for more details and the flyer

For our final meeting of the season, we have Alan Collins, partner at Hugh James is one of the best known solicitors in the field of child abuse litigation and has acted in many high profile cases, including the Jimmy Savile and Haut de la Garenne abuse scandals. He also specialises in serious personal injury cases including head and spinal injury claims.

Alan represents clients in this country and internationally and has recently been working in Australia, Uganda, Kenya, and California on a series of sexual abuse cases.

His best career moment was acting for the victims of sexual abuse at Green Field House, a children’s home in Berkshire. Occurring in the 1960s, it was considered to have been one of the worse cases ever to have come to public notice. As a result of the investigatory work undertaken by Alan, it was proved that the home had been the centre of what was a paedophile ring. All the victims that he acted for were compensated for the considerable harm they had suffered.

Alan is a fellow of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) and a director for the Association of Child Abuse Lawyers (ACAL). ACAL is a support group set up by solicitors and other professionals involved in the field of obtaining compensation for victims of abuse.

Alan regularly appears on television and radio in relation to his cases including the BBC and ITV national news, Radio 4 ‘Today’, and media channels in Australia and US. Alan is a regular speaker on legal issues, and has recently spoken at the National Crime Agency, Aberystwyth University, the ACAL conference, and at a child safeguarding conference.

For further details, please see the BMLS May 2015 flyer

Debating the issue of assisted dying, with a team from Bristol University

With special thanks to our Committee Member, Eugene Lloyd, we look forward to bringing you the BMLS Ethical Debate for our next supper meeting. This is a new idea which we are piloting and we would welcome your support with this event. Prizes will be awarded by our sponsor, Janus Financial Consultancy.

We have 4 medical / law students from Bristol University who will be debating the motion “This house believes that competent adults who are terminally ill should be provided at their request with specified assistance to end their own life.”

Tim, our President and Judith, our Vice President will be judging and giving feedback to the debaters, but we would like some audience participation in as much as we will be taking a vote before and afterwards to see whether the students have successfully swayed your views!

There will be supper beforehand as usual. We really hope as many of you as possible come along to support this event as the students have worked very hard in preparing for it. Hopefully it will a lively and thought provoking evening!
For further information, please see HERE.

Annual Dinner

On Friday 6 March 2015

at

THE MANSION HOUSE

Clifton Down, Bristol, BS8 3LJ

Fizz reception with canapés

Delicious 4 course meal plus coffee (details overleaf)

Wines (sparkling, red and white), specially selected to complement the food, included in the ticket price

Catering by Fosters

 After Dinner Speaker:- Wayne Barnes

 Inclusive ticket price:-

Members                                     £70 (or non-drinker £60)

Members’ first guest                    £70 (or non-drinker £60)

Additional non-member guests     £75 (or non-drinker £65)

~ Strictly black tie ~ Start 7.15pm ~ Carriages 11.45pm ~

 BMLS MENU

Annual Dinner 2015 Flyer

Members of the Committee had a preview of the menu ahead of the Annual Dinner on Friday 6 March 2015 (details HERE).

The menu looked and tasted fantastic. Here’s a link to the dinner menu.

Looking forward to 6 March now – more details to follow soon!

For the next meeting of our programme, we have Dr John Carlisle, who will be talking about investigating fraud in clinical research and its implications.

For more details, please see HERE.

For the second meeting of our programme, we were due to have Anthony Steen, whowas to talk about his work as Chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation.

Unfortunately, Anthony has been summonsed to Parliament. He has, however, arranged for Camilla Brown, CEO of Unchosen to attend in his place.

Unchosen is an anti-trafficking charity that organises film campaigns to raise public awareness and combat all forms of human trafficking, forced labour, sexual exploitation and domestic servitude in the UK and Ireland.

Please click HERE to access the form to confirm your attendance