PRESS RELEASE : Member appointed to the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody [December 2023]

The press release issued by the Ministry of Justice on 6 December 2023.

The Lord Chancellor has approved the appointment of Professor Seena Fazel as a member of the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody for three years from 1 October 2023.

Established in 2009, the Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody (IAPDC) forms part of the Ministerial Council on Deaths in Custody in England and Wales. The IAPDC provides expert advice and challenge to Ministers, departments, and agencies with the central aim of preventing deaths in custody.

This appointment is made by the Secretary of State for Justice in consultation with the Department of Health and Social Care and the Home Office, who co-sponsor and co-fund the IAPDC.

Appointments are regulated by the Commissioner for Public Appointments and recruitment processes comply with the Governance Code on Public Appointments.

Biography

Professor Fazel is a serving member of the IAPDC, having begun his first term in 2018 and his second in 2021. Professor Fazel is the Professor of Forensic Psychiatry and Director of the Centre for Suicide Research, at the University of Oxford. Since 2007, he has also been an Honorary Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist for Oxford Health NHS Foundation Trust.