Vera Baird

Dame Vera Baird (' Thomas'''; born 13 February 1950) is a British barrister and politician who has held roles as a government minister, police and crime commissioner, and Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales.

Baird was called to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1975 and first practised in the North East, setting up Collingwood Chambers in Newcastle upon Tyne, with other young barristers, shortly after she finished her pupilage and becoming its Head of Chambers for some years.

In the late 1980s she represented a mother who was alleged to have killed her three sons, an early example of a parent allegedly suffering from Münchausen syndrome by proxy.

She acted for many political protesters, at Greenham Common and other peace camps and on anti-Apartheid marches and demonstrations, and defended women who damaged shops in protest against 'top-shelf' magazines.

She represented local objectors in compulsory purchase and planning inquiries.

In 1983 she gained a BA in Literature and Modern History at the Open University.

In 1983 she became a legal associate of the Royal Town Planning Institute.

In 1983 she was retained to act for Billingham Against Nuclear Dumping (BAND) when the then nuclear waste disposal agency NIREX planned to store intermediate-level nuclear waste in a disused anhydrite mine under Billingham, though the plans were abandoned in 1985 when the owners of the mine, ICI, refused to co-operate.

At the conclusion of the campaign her fees were, at her direction, donated by BAND to the Druridge Bay Campaign.

At the 1983 general election, Baird contested the constituency of Berwick-upon-Tweed, finishing in third place behind the victor Alan Beith.

Despite the party's landslide defeat nationally, she received an increase in the Labour vote.

During the 1984–85 miners' strike she represented striking miners, most notably in North East England, charged with offences arising from picketing, demonstrations and the alleged intimidation of miners seeking to break the strike.

On Saturdays during the strike Baird was regularly seen outside a supermarket in Jesmond with a wheelbarrow collecting food for miners' families.

Baird met the 6th Lord Gifford while working on the Orgreave trial where her questioning of the police proved crucial to the outcome.

The Orgreave trial concerned allegations of riot and violent disorder against 95 miners, 15 of whom were in the first trial, which was abandoned by the prosecution after 16 weeks.

She subsequently represented similar groups opposed to nuclear-waste dumping threatened at Fulbeck in Lincolnshire (Lincolnshire Against Nuclear Dumping- LAND), at North Killingholme on Humberside (HAND) and at Bradwell (BAND) in a lengthy High Court action in 1986 before the plans were abandoned by the Conservative government shortly before the 1987 general election.

Baird represented a dismissed mother-to-be in an early pregnancy discrimination case (Brown v Stockton on Tees Borough Council) in the House of Lords.

She joined Gifford's chambers before moving to the Chambers of Michael Mansfield QC in 1988.

As a member of Mansfield's Chambers Baird was involved in many high-profile cases at the bar.

She defended in murder cases, robberies, drug cases, fraud and bribery cases at the Old Bailey and on appeal to the Court of Appeal and House of Lords.

She also prosecuted in environmental cases for Greenpeace.

In 1994 she represented the defendant in R v Carol Peters (the appeal and retrial), in which the Court of Appeal quashed Peters' murder conviction (alleged temazepam poisoning and the inflicting of 39 stab wounds on her husband) and ordered a retrial.

At the retrial Peters was acquitted of murder, the defence being that she was suffering from battered woman syndrome, at the time an undeveloped and area of law and fact.

She also represented Emma Humphreys on appeal, a disadvantaged young woman convicted of murdering her violent pimp when she was 17 years old.

The case drew attention to battered women who kill their violent partners and underpinned legislative changes subsequently made by the Labour Government when Baird was a Minister.

Baird acted for many other abused women following the Humphreys case and the legal changes that it brought about.

Other high-profile cases Baird has been involved in include the representation of murderer Jane Andrews in an appeal.

She defended prisoners accused of rioting at Risley Remand Centre and at Strangeways Prison and continued to represent campaigners in many kinds of protest case.

She completed the first year of an MA in modern history at London Guildhall University from 1999 before transferring to the University of Teesside on being selected for Redcar.

She is currently studying for an MPhil (History) at the University of Teesside.

She is an honorary fellow of St Hilda's College, Oxford and of Teesside University and an honorary professor of London South Bank University.

In 2000 Baird took silk, 25 years after becoming a barrister.

A Labour Party Member of Parliament for Redcar from 2001 to 2010, Baird was a government minister from 2006 to 2010 and the Solicitor General for England and Wales from 2007 to 2010.

At the 2001 general election she was selected to contest Labour's then ultra-safe seat of Redcar, following the retirement of the sitting MP and former Cabinet minister, Mo Mowlam.

She served as the Police and Crime Commissioner for Northumbria Police from November 2012 to June 2019.

Baird was appointed Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in the 2017 New Year Honours for services to women and equality.

Baird attended Yew Tree County Primary School and the local authority-run Chadderton Grammar School for Girls.

She then studied law at Newcastle Polytechnic where she gained an LLB. While at Newcastle Polytechnic she founded and edited a student newspaper, 'Polygon', and a year later was elected Vice President of the Polytechnic Union.

In November 2017 Baird was appointed an Honorary Fellow of Durham University Law School.

She was appointed as Victim's Commissioner in June 2019 and resigned in September 2022, accusing government ministers of downgrading victims' interests.