Dr David Lowe PhD, MPhil, BA (Hons), LLB(Hons)

LLB Programme Leader

Contact Details -

Address: John Foster Building, 98 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool, L3 5UZ
Telephone: +44 (0) 151 231 3918
Email: D.Lowe@ljmu.ac.uk

Teaching -

David is the module leader for Public Law (Level Four core module) and Crime & Security (Level Five option module). He also teaches on Criminal Law and Independent Learning in Law on the LLB as well as lectures on other undergraduate and post graduate programmes within the faculty on the topics of terrorism, policing and serious organised crime. He also supervises post graduate dissertation and PhD students.

Administrative -

David is the LLB Programme Leader.

Research Interests -

David's main research interests are Terrorism, Policing, Transnational Crime and Human Rights. Most of this emanates from David's previous occupation as a police officer with Merseyside Police, where he worked for 27 years.

Due his research in the area and his experience of working in counter-terrorism, David is regularly contacted by the media for his expert opinion on terrorist incidents. He was interviewed by Radio Merseyside in January on the Caucasian terror threat to Russia following the bomb explosion in Moscow Airport in January 2011.

With the Real IRA and other Irish dissident groups becoming increasingly active, in March 2011 David was interviewed by Radio City over the resurgence of Irish terrorism and potential threat this can have to the stability of Northern Ireland as well as the British mainland.

Following the death of Bin Laden in April 2011, he was interviewed by Radio Merseyside and Radio City in Liverpool.

The 9/11 tenth anniversary was a busy time for David. His services as a terrorism specialist were asked for by KGO Newstalk radio station in San Francisco, USA  on the topic of intelligence usage by security services in counter-terrorism. On the 11th September, KGO invited David to join the phone-in in his capactiy as a terrorism expert for the morning show the station ran to commemorate the tenth anniversary of 9/11. His expertise was also in demand and features in the Big Issue North (12th September 2011) in an article where he was interviewed regarding 9/11.

With the Basque Separatist terror group, Eta, who after forty years of running a terror campaign are considering a cessation of violence in Spain, David was interviewed and filmed by Mercury Press in October 2011 or his expert commentary on the impact Eta’s cessation of violence will have in Spain and the impact this will have for Spanish and French security forces. The article and video of the interview can be found on the Mercury Press website, Bay TV. He was also interviewed by the largest Slovakian newspaper, Pravda on the issue of Eta’s cessation of violence.

David’s expertise in terrorism studies was called on by Mercury Press in relation to cyber-terrorism in October 2011 and the interview can be viewed on Bay TV’s website.

In addition to terrorist activity in 2011, David has also provided expert commentary on aspects of policing and human rights to the online newspaper politics.co.uk and to the UK national daily newspaper, The Guardian, on the policing tactics during the riots in the UK in August. In November 2011 David’s expertise in the European Union’s justice and home affairs was called on by Slovakia’s, Pravda, for commentary on Julian Assange and European Arrest Warrants.

At the beginning of 2012 David ‘s expertise has still been in demand by the media. In January 2012 he was interviewed by the Liverpool Daily Post & Echo for a feature article on threat the Real IRA pose to mainland Britain due to their connections in the Liverpool area. In February he was interviewed by BBC Radio Merseyside for their popular ‘Drive Time’ programme to provide an explanation of the legal situation regarding the politically controversial releasing from prison of the radical cleric Abu Qatada, who was referred to as Bin Laden’s right hand man in Europe. In addition to this he was also interviewed for a feature on terrorism threat and national security measures regarding the 2012 Olympic Games for ‘Think’ magazine which is coming out in March 2012. The national Slovakian newspaper, Pravda, contacted David in February for commentary on the ongoing situation of Julian Assange’s appeal with the UK’s Supreme Court against extradition to Sweden via a European Arrest Warrant


Publications -

Journal Articles

‘Lack of Discretion in High Policing’, (2011), in in Policing and Society, 21(2) 233-247

Based on my research into the UK’s Special Branch Counter-Terrorism Unit, this article is the first study that examines how officers in high policing activity apply the law and demonstrates the lack of discretion officers on the ground have in comparison to their uniform colleagues.

'Police Collateral Surveillance Intelligence and the Lack of Human Rights Law Protection for European Citizens', Human Rights Law Commentary, May 2007

'EU Criminal Law: In through the back door', Journal of Academic and Legal Studies, May 2006

Books

(2011) Chapter: ‘I am not a terrorist: Collateral Intelligence and the Lack of Legal Protection’ in Patel T (editor) Crime in Society Matters: Key debates in Crime, Deviance and Contemporary Cultures London: Sage

This chapter examines the issue of collateral surveillance where counter-terrorist security agencies gather intelligence on citizens that have an innocent association with terrorist targets. Key to the analysis is where that intelligence is retained and how the agencies use this intelligence.

(2010) ‘Spooking the Spooks’ in Cliff Roberson, Dilip K. Das, Jennie K. Singer (eds) Police Without Borders: The Fading Distinction between Local and Global, London: Routledge

Published by Taylor and Francis in the USA and Routledge in the UK, it is a collection of writings by a number of academics from around the world that research policing. One of my academic works, ‘Spooking the Spooks: Conducting Research into the UK’s Integrated Special Branch’ is a chapter in the book. In academic circles, this is ground breaking work as none of the security agencies have been researched from the inside before.

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