The story of the role that Kent Law Clinic Solicitor Sheona York played in pioneering the use of DNA evidence in legal proceedings will feature in tonight’s episode of Inside Out South East on BBC 1.
Sheona was working on an immigration case in 1985 when she contacted Professor Sir Alec Jeffreys to request his help with the use of his then new DNA fingerprinting technique. Sheona had learned about his work as a scientist at the University of Leicester in an article in The Guardian newspaper and it was his help in her case that established his revolutionary DNA technique as practicable and legally unassailable. Sir Alec was subsequently called upon to assist the police in a murder case that became famous for the first use of the technique in a criminal trial.
In April last year, the story was told as part of a two-part ITV drama called Code of a Killer and Sheona was invited to view the drama at a special preview screening in Leicester.
Tonight’s Inside Out programme will be broadcast at 7.30pm. It will also be available on BBC iPlayer.
Sheona York is a specialist in immigration and asylum cases, working at Kent Law Clinic where she is also involved in teaching, research and policy work. Together with Clinic research assistant Richard Warren, she published a research report How children become ‘failed asylum-seekers’ in May 2014 which sought to improve outcomes for children seeking asylum in the UK.
A qualified solicitor, she practised for many years at Hammersmith & Fulham Community Law Centre, specialising in immigration, asylum, asylum support and public law, then moving to Immigration Advisory Service as Principal Legal Officer, specialising in public law immigration and asylum cases including many emergency judicial reviews against removals. More recently she worked as Legal Officer at Rights of Women, providing legal advice to individual women and carrying out training and workshops for women with insecure immigration status and specialist organisations assisting them.