Members
Council composition
To ensure an appropriate spectrum of experience and skills, the membership of the Council includes:
- Members of the judiciary
- Members of the legal professions
- Civil servants concerned with the administration of the family courts
- Persons with experience in and knowledge of healthcare
- Persons with experience in and knowledge of social care
- Persons able to represent the interests of particular users of family courts (such as parents groups and children’s groups)
Full Family Justice Council Membership
Appointed Members | Members’ biographies |
 Jenny Beck KC (Hon) – Private Law Solicitor Appointed: 2 January 2020 | Jenny specialises in all areas of private family law including children and finances for married and unmarried families. She has particular expertise in more complex cases involving allegations of harm including domestic abuse and parental alienation. She is actively involved in the promotion of access to justice for all. |
 Matt Clayton – ADCS Member Appointed: 25 July 2024 | Matt has led and developed a number of services within Coventry primarily around children in care and care leavers. Matt has a reputation for innovative practice with young people at the centre. This has included leading on the BAFTA-nominated documentary Superkids and follow-up Channel 4 show Kids, piloting the first automatic water bill discount to care leavers and the rollout Lifelong Links in Coventry. Matt is passionate about the importance of maintaining and promoting loving relationships for children in care and has had strategic oversight of Coventry’s reunification work as part of this. This work has seen over 30 children successfully returned to the care of their parents and delivered significant annual savings. Matt was recently invited to write the foreword to the NSPCC and Action for Children joint national report, Home again: reunification practice in England, and gave evidence on reunification to the Education Select Committee. Matt is chair of the West Midlands regional care leavers forum and Vice Chair of the National Leaving Care Benchmarking Forum steering group. Matt also Chairs the Adoption Central England Executive Board. |
 Vinice Cowell – Parent and Families Representative Member Appointed: 2 August 2022 | Vinice Cowell is a Child Protection Subject Matter Expert working within the Children and Families sector of Local Authority Social care for over 10 years. Vinice has dual experience of the children and families courts in both professional and personal private family law matters. Vinice is committed to changing the way services interact with families with a strong emphasis on delivering equality for all within statutory service structures. |
| DJ Member -Vacant | |
 Maud Davis – Public Law Solicitor Appointed: 17 October 2016 | Maud Davis qualified as a solicitor in 1990, became accredited by the Law Society in children law in 1996, and is a higher courts advocate (civil). She joined Bindmans LLP in 2020, after almost 20 years as a partner in other firms. She specialises in children law, in particular representing children in complex care cases. Maud is an honorary vice life president of the Association of Lawyers for Children and co-chairs the Interdisciplinary Alliance for Children. She is a member of Resolution, BAAF, the London Children’s Lawyer’s Group, and the International Bar Association. She is also an associate member of NAGALRO. She has been a member of advisory groups for socio-legal research, including work on mothers and fathers in repeat care proceedings, and children’ privacy in family proceedings. She regularly provides training and writes on family law. |
 Angela Frazer-Wicks MBE – Parent and Families Representative Member Appointed: 2 August 2022 | Angela Frazer-Wicks MBE is a birth mum, her eldest two children were adopted in 2004 after a very long and fraught battle with her Local Authority due to domestic violence and mental health issues. She is now married with a young daughter who has had no Local Authority involvement whatsoever. In 2020 she was reunited with her eldest son. Angela is Chair of Trustees of Family Rights Group and founding member of their parents panel, one of their expert panels of family members with direct lived experience of the Child Welfare and Family Justice System. She regularly speaks about her experiences in an attempt to highlight issues facing families in the hope of facilitating positive change. She has campaigned for many years to have the voices of families heard within the system. Angela was awarded an MBE for services to children and families in the King’s Birthday Honours List 2023. |
 Ruth Hay – Mediator Appointed: 1 November 2023 | Ruth started her career in the reinsurance industry and since 2003 has worked with individuals, families, corporations, and public services. Ruth trained in civil mediation in 2011 and family mediation in 2013, she is an FMC accredited mediator, qualified in child inclusive mediation, a PPC offering support to other mediators, and a trained parental coordinator. Having worked for over 20 years offering support, education, coaching, mentoring, and mediation Ruth has a broad understanding of the issues that families can face and views empowering families and professionals to adapt to and manage the changing landscape in the family arena as critical to achieve the best outcomes for all. She has served on the board of the Family Mediation Association and is now the Mediator member of the Family Justice Council. She has a particular interest in the equality of services provided in relation to domestic abuse, safeguarding, and access to services. |
 Dr Andy Hayward – Academic MemberAppointed: 5 July 2024 | Andy is an Associate Professor in Family Law at Durham Law School, Durham University. His research focuses on domestic and comparative family law, especially the legal regulation of adult interpersonal relationships. He has written extensively on family law with recent publications including The Future of Registered Partnerships: Family Recognition Beyond Marriage? (Intersentia 2017) (with Prof Jens Scherpe), Research Handbook on Family Property and the Law (Edward Elgar 2024) (with Prof Margaret Briggs) and De Facto Relationships: A Comparative Guide (Edward Elgar 2025 forthcoming) (with Prof Jens Scherpe). Andy has particular expertise in domestic and comparative cohabitation law and policy and in 2021 was appointed Special Advisor to the UK Parliament’s Women and Equalities Committee for their Rights of Cohabiting Partners Inquiry. He is also an Honorary Member of the Inner Temple. |
 Ruth Henke KC – Silk Member Appointed: 11 May 2022 | Ruth Henke KC was called to the Bar in 1987. She took silk in 2006. Ruth is a Bencher of the Inner Temple and a S9(4) DHCJ. Ruth is a specialist in cases involving the protection of children and adults. She works throughout England and Wales. Ruth is Head of Chambers at 30 Park Place in Cardiff and a working door tenant at 1GC , London and Linenhall, Chester. Ruth is currently chair of the SE Wales branch of the FLBA. She is a member of the Law Commission’s Welsh Advisory panel. Ruth contributes material to Butterworth’s Family Law Service and the Red Book. |
 Louise MacLynn KC Silk Member – Appointed: 5 July 2024 | Louise MacLynn was called to the Bar in 2001 and took silk in 2023. She is a specialist in cases concerning children and vulnerable adults. Louise is appointed to the Attorney General’s special advocates panel and is experienced in dealing with cases involving sensitive information and national security matters. Many of Louise’s cases involve the interplay between the family and criminal justice systems and she also sits as a Recorder in the Crown Court. |
 Bernadette MacQueen – Legal Adviser (Justices’ Clerk) Appointed: 14 September 2020 | After qualifying as a solicitor in local government, Bernadette has been a legal adviser to magistrates since 2003. She is currently responsible for a team of lawyers working in the Family jurisdiction across Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire. In her previous role, she worked at the Maintenance Enforcement Business Centre, advising on reciprocal maintenance law and becoming recognised nationally as an expert in the field. More recently, she has developed an innovative approach to the triaging of private family law cases which has been adopted by courts around the country. |
 Simon Rowbotham – Junior Barrister Appointed 1 August 2023 | Simon Rowbotham’s practice at the Bar began in Manchester, where his work included all areas of family law. Since 2018, he has practised from London predominantly in private law, family finance and the Court of Protection. He sits as a Recorder on the Midlands Circuit. |
 Natalia Schiffrin – Magistrate Appointed: 4 July 2022 | Natalia started her legal career as an international human rights lawyer. She has been involved in the family justice system since joining the staff of Family Rights Group in 2004, where she worked for over a decade. Natalia has recently served as Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees of Solace Women’s Aid and as a member of the Justice Working Party on Improving Access to Justice for Separating Families. She is currently a member of the Criminal Justice Alliance Expert Working Group on Remand Sentencing, an advisor to the Roma Rights Project at Law for Life and a consultant to a U.S. based law firm. She has been a Family Magistrate since 2018. |
 Fiona Straw – Paediatrician Appointed: 12 October 2020 | As a consultant paediatrician Fiona Straw brings over 25 years’ experience of working with children and young people. Having held various operational and strategic roles locally, regionally and nationally within medical safeguarding and child protection, she has significant expertise in all aspects of child abuse and neglect including CSE, FGM. Fiona is an expert medical witness and an advisor to the Royal College of Paediatrics Child Health and Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine.Fiona is committed to improving multiagency understanding and partnership to ensure that all children and young people, and their careers, regardless of their situation are safeguarded from harm.
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 HHJ Karen Venables – Circuit Judge Appointed: 1 October 2021 | Karen qualified as a solicitor in 1986, and was the managing partner of a large family legal aid practice in London. She was appointed a District Judge in 2003 and a Circuit Judge in 2013. She sits in the Family Court at Milton Keynes and hears a wide range of complex public and private law children’s proceedings. Karen has been appointed the judicial lead responsible for the development of a local domestic abuse strategy for her court. She is also the lead FDAC (Family Drugs and Alcohol Court) judge for Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire and is involved in training and mentoring new FDAC judges throughout the country. She has also been involved in a range of initiatives to promote family justice, inter-agency co-operation and multi-disciplinary approaches including the evolution of problem-solving courts and a review of the way in which the voice of the child can be heard in private law proceedings. |
 Natasha Watson – Public Law Solicitor Appointed: 17 October 2016 | Natasha Watson was appointed to the FJC as the local authority lawyer representative in 2016. A highly experienced public law specialist she heads the safeguarding and litigation legal team for Brighton and Hove City Council. Natasha co- chaired the Sussex Family Justice Board until 2016. She regularly provides policy advice to the DFE and other bodies, and has contributed to various publications concerning the development of good practice, most recently in relation to social work reports in private law proceedings, and timescales for the assessment of special guardians. Natasha currently sits on the Public Law Working Group at the invitation of the President which has made extensive recommendations to improve practice and achieve the right outcomes for families before, during and after care proceedings. The final report and recommendations will be published later this year. |
 Sheena Webb – Child Mental Health Specialist Appointed: 1 August 2023 | Dr Sheena Webb is a consultant clinical psychologist with 20 years’ experience in the field of children and family services. She has spent the past decade working alongside the Family Court within an NHS multidisciplinary expert team and then the Family Drug and Alcohol Court. Dr Webb is an experienced trauma therapist and provides training, supervision and consultation to professionals from a trauma-informed perspective. After leaving the NHS in 2021, she has collaborated with innovative organisations supporting research and development within social care and justice. She has a special interest in integrating psychological theory, clinical experience and cross-disciplinary discourse to develop services that are responsive to people with complex needs. |
Ex-officio Members:
Rebecca Cobbin – HMCTS
Alistair Davey – Welsh Government
Sally Holland – Children’s Commissioner for Wales
Daniel Foster – DfE
Beatrice Longmore – Office of the Deputy Children’s Commissioner for England
Luke Taylor – Ministry of Justice
Kate Thomas – CAFCASS Cymru
Barry Tilzey – CAFCASS
Executive Committee Members
Chair
Mr Justice Keehan
Members
Maud Davis
Ruth Henke KC
Rosemary Hunter
Kate Thomas
Fiona Straw
HHJ Karen Venables
Natalia Schiffrin
Luke Taylor
Barry Tilzey
Code of Practice
Members of the Council must abide by our Code of Practice: