Eric Baskind has been involved in the prevention and management of violence and aggression and the use of physical interventions for more than 35 years during which time he has advised many organisations both in the UK and other countries mainly in relation to their use by prison, police, secure units, hospitals, schools and security staff. Eric is a member of the European Violence in Psychiatry Research Group. He is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. He is the current Chair of the Centre for Physical Interventions at the BSDGB.

Eric is the author of Defend Yourself: The Complete Guide to Personal Safety, published by Pelham, London in 1993. He is also co-author of Coercive Measures in the Management of Imminent Violence: Restraint, Seclusion and Enhanced Observation; in Violence in Mental Health Settings, published by Springer New York in 2006. He also developed the first qualification in self-defence/restraints (1993) to be externally accredited and funded by the (then) Further Education Funding Council.

Eric has been instructed as an Expert Witness in more than 3,000 use of force related cases and is the retained expert to the Prison Officers’ Association. Eric has also given evidence to a number of Inquiries including (in both 2005 and 2011) the independent inquiry set up by Lord Carlile of Berriew QC, FRSA, CBE into the use of physical restraint, solitary confinement and forcible strip searching of children in prisons, secure training centres and local authority secure children’s homes. In 2013, Eric was appointed as Commissioner to Lord Ramsbotham’s National Independent Commission on Enforced Removals following death under restraint of Jimmy Mubenga in 2010.

Eric’s current work includes chairing an expert panel advising the Security Industry Authority on the appropriateness of physical intervention techniques in connection with the SIA’s licence-linked qualifications. He is also a member of the SIA panel devising a new violence reduction strategy. He is also advising as an independent expert/reviewer in relation to the review and production of a new set of training manuals for the prevention and management of violence and aggression for the three High Secure hospitals in England (Broadmoor, Rampton and Ashworth) and the State Hospital at Carstairs in Scotland and An Garda Siochana (Irish Police). He is also frequently engaged as an expert peer-reviewer of training programmes.