Principal Lawyer and Head of Human Rights
Abuse Team, Slater & Gordon Solicitors, Manchester
Kim Harrison is a principal lawyer and joint head of abuse law and public inquiries team at Slater & Gordon Solicitors. She acts for abuse survivors in civil cases against various institutions including churches and religious institutions, schools, hospitals, local authorities, sports clubs, the Scout Association and the Ministry of Defence.
Previously a partner at Pannone LLP, where amongst other roles Kim headed up the firms Actions Against the Police team, Kim has a First Class Honours Degree in Law from the University of Sheffield.
She specialises in case of ‘failure to remove/failure to protect’ in both negligence and human rights acting for children against local authority social services department.
She acted for a number of core participants in the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) including in the Anglican, Nottinghamshire Care Homes, Westminster, Lambeth, Child Sexual Exploitation by Organised Networks, Residential Schools and Janner modules. She represented APIL in the Accountability and Reparations module arguing for reform of the law of limitation in non-recent child sexual abuse cases which was subsequently recommended by IICSA’s final report.
She acts for 11 families of the victims of the Manchester Arena Bombing in the Public Inquiry and also acts for clients in the Covid-19 Public Inquiry.
She has published widely in various legal journals and websites including LexisNexis, NLJ, JPIL, PILJ, Justice Gap and has lectured internally and externally on a wide range of topics including most recently on Sexual Violence and the Military and the CICA scheme and the law around consent and CSE.
She successfully sued the Ministry of Defence in a human rights case for breach of Article 3 (right not to be subjected to inhuman and/or degrading treatment) in relation to serious sexual assaults perpetrated by Libyan cadets staying at Bassingbourn barracks upon members of the public https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/oct/15/mod-victims-sexual-abuse-libyan-cadets-damages.
She regularly and appears on TV and radio to comment on abuse law and government policy in this area including appearances on BBC Breakfast, Newsnight, BBC Radio 4 Today Programme and World at One, Channel 4 news, BBC and ITN news, Sky, radio 5 live and many others. Recent media appearances have centred on the parole board’s decision (now quashed) to release John Worboys the taxi cab rapist and also the conviction of Barry Bennell.
She is an APIL exec member and chairs their equality and diversity committee. She is an APIL accredited senior litigator and a former member of the JPIL editorial board. She is also on the ACAL executive committee and a legal panel member of the children’s rights charity Article 39.