Dr Candida Saunders
Legal academic / Author / Creator and Host of Criminal Justice in Action
A legal scholar specialising in criminal law and procedure, Candida spent two decades researching and teaching at the University of Nottingham. Her academic work focuses on how the criminal justice system operates in practice, particularly in rape and sexual assault cases, and those involving vulnerable witnesses. She has conducted extensive empirical research, including interviews with police officers and Crown Prosecutors about their decision-making, detailed analysis of case files, and first-hand observation of criminal trials in the Crown Courts.
Her research has been funded by bodies including the Nuffield Foundation and the Economic Social and Research Council, and has been published in leading peer-reviewed journals such as the Criminal Law Review, Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, International Journal of Evidence & Proof, and British Journal of Criminology.
In Criminal Justice in Action, Candida draws on this research so we can see for ourselves how the criminal justice system really operates in the investigation and prosecution of rape and serious sexual offences. Not what we assume happens. Not what the conventional wisdom tells us happens. But what the evidence actually shows.
Every claim is grounded in data. Every episode is informed by years of rigorous academic inquiry.