The British Self Defence Governing Body provides expert witness services through its chairman, Dr Eric Baskind.

Dr Eric Baskind is a consultant and expert witness in violence reduction, self-defence, physical/mechanical restraint, defensive/arrest equipment, security and martial arts. He has a Professional Doctorate in Policing, Security and Criminal Justice as well as an LLB and LLM. He was senior lecturer in law at Liverpool John Moores University from 1999 – 2022 and, until 2024, was co-programme lead for the MSc in ‘Enhancing the Safety and Wellbeing of Persons in Care and Custody’, at Queen Mary, University of London. He is now visiting fellow at Oxford Brookes University. In addition, he writes and contributes to textbooks for a number of publishers including Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Routledge and Springer. These books cover violence reduction and the safe use of force (Cambridge and Springer), and law (Oxford and Routledge).

Eric’s particular research focus is concerned with the evaluation of the many different systems of managing disruptive, aggressive and violent behaviour which include de-escalation, communication, behavioural management, disengagement and restraint.

Eric is experienced across a broad range of systems used by the Prison and Police services, healthcare including secure hospital establishments, and other institutional settings providing secure accommodation, schools and other kinds of educational establishments including the juvenile secure estate, as well as those methods used by security personnel within the fields of personal safety and public order.

Much of Eric’s work is involved in devising and advising on effective and safer methods of dealing with disruptive, aggressive and violent behaviour and the related question of assessing risk to identify and inform subsequent strategies for the reduction of and coping with such behaviours and in the reduction in the use of physical interventions and restraints generally.

Eric has published articles in peer-reviewed professional journals and chapters in professional textbooks. He also speaks several times a year at conferences, many of which he chairs. His papers focus on a range of related topics including violence-reduction strategies, the use and misuse of physical restraint and the current thinking on the use of non-pain inducing techniques, prone-restraint positions and mechanical restraint devices.

Eric has served on a number of steering and expert groups including the Security Industry Authority, College of Policing, the four UK High Secure Hospitals and ProtectED.

Eric has advised numerous other bodies including the BBC, the Howard League for Penal Reform, various Inquiries and the Parliamentary Resources Unit. He has appeared in a number of high-profile Inquires including the Lord Carlile Independent Inquiry into the Use of Physical Restraint in Prisons, Secure Training Centres, and Local Authority Secure Children’s Homes and served as a Commissioner to the National Independent Commission on Enforced Removals with specific responsibility for the management of violence and aggression and the use of restraint. The Commission was chaired by The Lord Ramsbotham, GCB, CBE, formerly Chief Inspector of Her Majesty’s Prisons, and was established in March 2012 following the death under restraint of Mr Jimmy Mubenga during his deportation from the UK in 2010.

Eric has been instructed as an expert witness both in the UK and in other countries in more than 3,000 cases including by the Ministry of Justice/Home Office, Prison Officers’ Association, Police Federation and Scottish Prison Service in a range of cases where issues of physical intervention/restraint have arisen both in training and operationally. He has considerable experience of dealing with cases involving deaths in custody and giving evidence at Inquests and Fatal Accident Inquiries.

Dr Eric Baskind can be contacted at BSDGB head office or by e-mail.

Please ask for a copy of Eric’s CV.