Eric Baskind – LLB (Hons), LLM, MCIArb, FRSA, FHEA
Since 1987, Eric has been active as a consultant in the prevention and management of violence and aggression and in the use of physical interventions. He is also a senior lecturer in Law at Liverpool John Moores University, where he is responsible for teaching a number of subjects including criminal law, sports law and commercial law.
He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a Member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators and a Member of the European Violence in Psychiatry Research Group. He is Chairman of the Centre for Physical Interventions at the British Self Defence Governing Body (BSDGB), a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to the improvement in personal safety and to the reduction in violence and aggression in the workplace.
Eric has advised numerous bodies on the use of force and physical interventions and has been instructed as an expert witness both in the UK and in other countries in more than 3,000 cases involving restraint-related injuries and deaths, including by the Prison Officers’ Association, Police Federation, Home Office/Ministry of Justice and the Scottish Prison Service. Among the other organisations he has advised are the High Secure Hospitals at Ashworth and Broadmoor and the Security Industry Authority, where he is currently advising on the appropriateness of the physical intervention skills in relation to the SIA’s licence-linked qualifications for security staff.
Eric gave both written and oral evidence to The Lord Carlile of Berriew QC Independent Inquiry into the Use of Physical Restraint etc in Prisons, Secure Training Centres, and Local Authority Secure Children’s Homes, held in the House of Lords, 2006 and 2011.
He was also a Commissioner serving on 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 Lord Ramsbotham, GCB, CBE, formerly Chief Inspector of Her Majesty’s Prisons, and was established in March 2012 following the death of Mr Jimmy Mubenga who died whilst being restrained during his deportation from the UK.
Amongst the organisations he is currently working with are:
- The High Secure Hospitals at Ashworth, Rampton, Broadmoor and Carstairs where he is the Independent Expert Advisor to the Violence Reduction Manual Steering Group
- The Security Industry Authority where he chairs an expert panel reviewing the management of violence and aggression and use of force in connection with the SIA’s licence-linked qualifications
- The College of Policing’s Mental Health Restraint Expert Reference Group where he leads the work on restraint practices
Eric is the author of Defend Yourself: The Complete Guide to Personal Safety (Pelham Books, London, 1993). He is also co-author of a chapter on Coercive Measures in the Management of Imminent Violence: Restraint, Seclusion, and Enhanced Observation in Violence in Mental Health Settings: Causes, Consequences, Management (Springer-Verlag, New York, 2007). Eric has appeared on numerous occasions on television and radio to discuss various aspects of managing violence and aggression and the use and misuse of physical restraint.
In 2014, Eric was presented with a Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his outstanding work in the prevention and managing of violence and aggression.