Legal Eagles project receives some national exposure

Recent graduate Sarah Couling chatted about answering questions set by prisoners, and Senior Lecturer in Law and Co-Director of the Open Justice Centre Hugh McFaul discussed how prisoners study with The Open University in general. Sarah and Hugh are shown with BBC journalist and programme host Joshua Rozenberg, together with a copy of the Centre’s annual report, outside HMP Altcourse.

The ‘Legal Eagles’ project, which ran in February and March this year after a successful pilot scheme in 2018, saw OU Law School students collaborate with prison learners from the Category B men’s private prison on Merseyside.

Sarah was one of the six final-year Law students on the W360: Justice in Action module who were granted regular access to the prison, meeting with prisoners to explore and research the legal issues affecting them such as human rights and release on licence, to family, employment and housing law. The students later returned to record the programme called ‘Castaway’ with inmates, which was broadcast to other prisoners on Radio Altcourse.