Felicity Gerry QC will speak with Philippa Southwell, Managing Director of The Human Trafficking & Modern Slavery Expert Directory, about their experience of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 and defending human trafficking victims who commit crime. Felicity will also discuss defending trafficked persons who face the death penalty, raising the victim’s rule in a terrorism trial and child soldiers in international law. Philippa founded the Human Trafficking & Modern Slavery Expert Directory in 2015, after identifying a desperate need for a single resource for professionals working in the counter human trafficking and modern slavery sector. The Directory provides professional training, eLearning and expert reports. Felicity is a listed expert.

Felicity Gerry QC is admitted in the ICC, the Kosovo Specialist Chambers, England and Wales and Australia (Victoria and the High Court Roll). She has also had ad hoc admission in Hong Kong and Gibraltar. She specialises in leading for the defence in the most serious and complex criminal trials and appeals, often with an international element. She is well known for her role in R v Jogee [2016] UKSC 8 and other complicity cases but more recently she appeared in three high profile terrorism trials and is currently instructed in two human trafficking appeals. In 2015 she assisted lawyers in the Philippines who succeeded in gaining a temporary reprieve for a trafficked woman on death row (for which she received a Ryan Family Award) and in May 2020 she completed a death penalty and human trafficking study for the Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines. She is Professor of Legal Practice at Deakin University where she lectures in Contemporary International Legal Challenges on topics including Modern Slavery, Terrorism and International Law. She is a contributor to Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking Law and Practice (2018 2nd Ed forthcoming) and Human Trafficking Emerging Legal Issues (2017). In 2019 she developed module 14 of the UNODC Education For Justice Tertiary materials on the links between human trafficking, smuggling of migrants and cybercrime. She has provided training to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association Modern Slavery Project and the Bangladesh Judicial Management project, given evidence at a Parliamentary Inquiry into Modern Slavery and in May 2020 contributed to the Law Council of Australia submission to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade on International Strategies on Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery.

Philippa Southwell is Managing Director of The Human Trafficking & Modern Slavery Expert Directory; co-editor of Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery: Law and Practice (Bloomsbury 2018 2nd Ed forthcoming) and Co Author of “Does the new Slavery Defence Offer Victims any Greater Protection” (Archbold Review 9th November 2015 issue 9). As Head of the Human Trafficking and Modern Slavery Department at Birds Solicitors, she specialises in cases concerning victims of human and forced criminality. She has acted on several hundred slavery and human trafficking cases throughout her career, drafted numerous Law Society practice notes on human trafficking and was advisor to UNICEF in relation to the UK's Modern Slavery Act 2015. She regularly delivers training to law enforcement and legal professionals on many areas of modern slavery law, including modern slavery regulatory compliance. She has trained Judges, prosecutors and police in the Middle East including Oman and Qatar, and was awarded a certificate of appreciation by the Omani Attorney General for her work. Philippa has been involved in many of the significant and leading cases in England and Wales involving victims of modern slavery and forced criminality, including R v L & Ors [2013] EWCA Crim 991 and R v VSJ et al [2017] EWCA Crim 36. She has acted at all levels, representing the interests of victims of human trafficking, including at the Supreme Court and European Court of Human Rights. Philippa was called to give oral evidence as a legal expert in the Home Affairs Committee modern slavery inquiry. She also submitted written evidence during the inquiry