Background
Jo Eggleton is one of the founding partners of Deighton Pierce Glynn. Jo trained in Brighton where she undertook cases for protesters, both criminal and civil. She qualified in 1997 and joined Deighton Guedalla in 1998. She became a partner in 2007.
In 2017 she was shortlisted for the Liberty Human Rights Lawyer of the Year award for her work trying to prevent self-inflicted deaths in Woodhill prison.
Expertise
Jo is a specialist in all aspects of litigation relating to the criminal justice system and for victims of state human rights and civil liberties abuses.
She has significant expertise in relation to police misconduct; including bringing complaints and damages claims for discrimination, false imprisonment, assault, and malicious prosecution and following deaths in police and prison custody.
Example cases include Sarjantson v The Chief Constable of Humberside Police – a successful claim and important Court of Appeal decision confirming the duties on the police to respond to 999 calls and the test for causation in claims alleging state failings to protect life. The Claimant was viciously beaten suffering severe head injuries. Police had been alerted to the danger by 999 calls but there were delays dispatching officers to attend. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/1252.html
Eileen Dunne & Anor, R (on the application of) v The Independent Office for Police Conduct ([2023] EWHC 3300 (Admin)) – successful challenge by a man seriously injured by armed police. The judgement has been described as a Landmark Judgment on Human Rights Procedural Obligations in Police Conduct Investigations.
She is especially sought after to represent families whose loved ones have died in prison. She has acted for relatives in inquests, civil claims and public law challenges concerning multiple deaths of prisoners in failings prisons including HMP Woodhill, HMP Nottingham and HMP Lowdham Grange.
Tragically 18 men took their own lives whilst detained at HMP Woodhill between May 2013 and December 2016. The highest rate of any prison at that time. Jo acted for the families of 11 of them. In 2016 she acted for relatives of two of the men challenging the prison’s failure to implement improvements identified in investigations and inquests following earlier deaths – see R(otao Scarf Barber & Blyde) v The Governor of HMP Woodhill & Secretary of State for Justice. https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2017/1194.html. The claim ultimately failed but there were no deaths in the prison in 2017. The prison has since been repurposed and no longer holds remand or short term prisoners.
In 2024 she acted for the relatives of Robert Fenlon who took his own life in HMP Woodhill in March 2016. The jury at his inquest concluded that Robert had been unlawfully killed by gross negligence manslaughter. This is the first time an inquest has found that a self-inflicted death in detention amounted to unlawful killing. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c25r8818ne5o
Jo is a member of Police Action Lawyers Group and Inquest Lawyers Group.
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