Currently I am a Professor in the Northumbria Law School and Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology in the Faculty of Health & Life Sciences at Northumbria University, Newcastle upon Tyne and Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Approved Clinician with Cumbria, Northumberland, Tyne & Wear NHS Foundation Trust. I am a chartered clinical and forensic psychologist. I Chair the British Psychological Society’s (BPS) Mental Health Act Advisory Group and Approved Clinician Peer-Review Panel. I am a Past President of the British Association for Behavioural and Cognitive Psychotherapies (BABCP), and a former Chair of the BPS Faculty for Forensic Clinical Psychology. I was a member of the UK Government Mental Health Act (MHA) Independent Review Advisory Group. In 2010 I was one of the first two psychologists to be approved as an Approved Clinician in England following the MHA 2007. I have published more than 150 research papers, articles, books and book chapters mainly concerning the mental health and forensic needs of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. I received an award for Outstanding Contribution to Applied Practice from the BPS Faculty for Forensic Clinical Psychology in 2017 and I was elected an Honorary Fellow of the BABCP in 2018 for my work on developing CBT for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.