Laura Richards

Host

Laura Richards, BSc, MSc, MBPsS

Laura is a renowned criminal behavioural analyst and international expert on domestic violence, stalking, sexual violence, homicide and risk assessment. After a decade of analysing violent crime at New Scotland Yard Laura became the violence adviser to the National Police Chiefs Council (NPCC). Trained by world leaders at the Behavioural Analysis Unit, National Centre for the Analysis of Violent Crime at the FBI and New Scotland Yard, Laura has applied her psychology degrees to analyse violent crime from a behavioural and preventative perspective.

Laura has a BSc in Psychology and Sociology and an MSc in Forensic and Legal Psychology, and with a background in intelligence-led policing, has been the architect of law reform to better protect victims on six occasions, winning numerous awards for her work.

Laura is Founder of Paladin, the world’s first National Stalking Advocacy Service. Paladin was set up following the highly successful All Party Parliamentary Stalking Law Reform Campaign spearheaded by Laura, which led to stalking becoming a criminal offence in 2012. Laura spearheaded the Domestic Violence Law Reform Campaign to criminalise coercive control. Laura helped draft the new law and the statutory guidance and developed and delivered the first training on the new law in the UK. Laura is leading campaigns in the US and Australia to criminalise coercive control and a UK campaign for serial domestic violence perpetrators and stalkers to be proactively identified, assessed and managed by police and probation service.

Laura was head of the Violent Crime and Intelligence Analysis Unit in the Metropolitan Police Service and continues to advise NPCC, the College of Policing, the Home Office and police services across the UK on public protection. Laura developed the Domestic Abuse, Stalking and Harassment and Honour based violence (DASH 2009-2020) Risk Identification, Assessment and Management Model on behalf of NPCC and in partnership with Safer Lives.

Laura is executive producer of Jennifer 42 and co-creator and executive producer of the CBS show The Case of: JonBenét Ramsey and The Case of: Caylee Anthony on Oxygen. Laura was consulting producer and on-screen expert for the two-hour documentary special “Dirty John, The Dirty Truth” and host of the Netflix series Killer in the Family.

Laura is co-creator and co-host of the award-winning podcast Real Crime Profile and has a golden doodle puppy called Beatrice aka the #SavageLittleBeast.