Dr Rachel McPherson
- Lecturer (School of Law)
telephone:
0141 330 1777
email:
Rachel.Mcpherson@glasgow.ac.uk
Room 316, Stair Building, University of Glasgow
Biography
Rachel’s expertise lies in Criminal Law and Evidence and Family Law. She is particularly interested in legal responses to domestic abuse, fatal domestic absue and the use of criminal defences in practice.
She sits of the steering board of the Scottish Institute for Policing Research and is a member of the Law Society of Scotland's Criminal Law Committee.
She has worked across a range of socio-legal research projects including those funded by the Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service, Economic and Social Research Council, Scottish Government, and Scottish Institute for Policing Research. She has worked on issues such as hate crime, police officers’ understanding of medico-legal intervention in the processing of sexual assault cases, rape attrition, the pilot scheme initiatives of ‘Clare’s Law’ and a range of sentencing issues (sentencing discounts, death by driving cases, sexual offences and the sentencing of young people).
Research interests
- Access to justice
- Criminal law
- Criminal justice
- Family law
- Gender and the law
- Law of evidence
- Legal responses to domestic abuse
- Sentencing
- Socio-legal research methodologies
Grants
- Royal Society of Edinburgh (2021)Understanding and translating cases in which women kill following domestic abuse
- Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (2020) Sentencing in cases involving rape in Scotland and other jurisdictions
- Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (2020) Sentencing in cases involving sexual assault in Scotland and other jurisdictions
- Carnegie Trust (2020) Scottish homicides: bridging the gap between the empirical and theoretical
- Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (2019) Analysis of Judicial Consultations on Sentencing
- Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (2019) Sentencing Discount, tendered in association with University of Strathclyde
- Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (2019) Public Perceptions of Sentencing Survey, tendered in association with Ipsos MORI
- Scottish Courts and Tribunal Service (2019) Public Perceptions of Sentencing in the Scottish Courts, tendered in associated with ScotCen
- Scottish Sentencing Council (2018) Death by Driving Literature Review, tendered in association with University of Strathclyde
- Scottish Government (2017) Independent Review of Hate Crime Legislation
- Glasgow City Council (2017) Hate Crime Service Provision
Supervision
Rachel is interested in supervising students with an interest in any aspect of criminal law and criminal justice; the law of evidence; family law and gender and the law.
Current supervision:
Nicholas Burgess: Tracking the Synergy Between Criminal Law Theory and UK Drug Laws from the 19th to the 21st Centuries
Isankhya Udani Gammanpila Imiyage Don: A Critical Analysis on the State Obligation of Sri Lanka under CEDAW
Clare Marsh: The introduction a specific defence in the context of the law of homicide where an accused has been a victim of domestic abuse, and how this defence should operate.
Holly McKenna: Jury selection in rape trials
- Burgess, Nicholas
Tracking the synergy between criminal law theory and UK - Gammanpila Imiyage Don, Isankhya Udani
Concretization of Gender Inequality through Legalization of Discriminatory Gender Norms: A Critical Analysis on the State Obligation of Sri Lanka under CEDAW - McManus, Daniel
Developing Alternatives to Prosecutions in Scotland
Teaching
- Criminal Law and Evidence
- Criminal Law: Theory and Doctrine
- Family Law
- Foundations of Evidence
- Issues in Family Law
Additional information
Affiliations
Gender-Based Violence Research Forum
Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research
Law Reform and Public Policy Research Group
Socio-Legal Research Group
Blog Posts
What do we know about sentencing sexual offences in Scotland?
