Welcome to Southampton
Law School.
My name is Asif Hameed,
and I’m the undergraduate
admissions tutor.
Just to explain the plan,
I’ll be talking briefly about
the law degrees at Southampton,
but in addition I’ll be handing
over, very quickly,
to an academic colleague
who has lined up a fantastic
taster lecture for you.
It’s about seven minutes long
and will give you
a really great insight
into what it would be like
for you to study law with us.
So, Southampton University
is ranked within the top
100 universities in the world.
In addition, we are a member
of the Russell Group in the UK.
The Russell Group comprises
24 leading UK universities
that are dedicated
to academic research.
And that’s what we do
at the Law School.
Academics here are engaged
in cutting-edge research
that is looking to push
back the frontiers
of human knowledge.
That’s great for you as
a student at the law school.
You’ll be exposed
to cutting-edge thinking
in the areas
that you’re studying.
Studying law at Southampton
is an exciting challenge.
You’ll be developing
your ability to think
independently and critically.
A law degree is absolutely
not about rote learning,
about memorising mass
amounts of information.
That is not what
we’re interested in at all.
Of course, as a law student
you will need to be familiar
with the legal landscape,
but what we’re interested
in is getting you to think
about what’s going on,
to try to understand
how the law is actually working,
understand the reasons why
the law is the way it is,
and then think
about some problems.
Is the law working well?
Might there be some issues
with how the law is operating?
And if so,
what might the solutions be,
what might the options be,
and which should we prefer?
So these are some
of the things that
you’ll be thinking about as
a law student at Southampton,
but rather than me simply
trying to explain this to you,
it’d be better
for you to just see
what this is like.
So without further ado,
I’ll hand you over now
to the taster lecture.
Hello, there.
My name is David Gurnham.
I am a professor of criminal law
here at Southampton Law School.
Now, I take an interdisciplinary
approach to the study of law,
which means I take
insights from humanities
and from social sciences
in the study of legal questions,
and I bring this to my teaching
and also to my research.
Now, currently a topical issue
in my particular area
of teaching research is
whether we can use our existing
criminal laws to respond
to the spread of Covid-19.
And there are really
two aspects to this.
On the one hand,
we have the new statutory
offences and police powers
brought in by the aptly
named Coronavirus Act 2020.
On the other hand,
there’s the question about
what we do with individuals
who seem to go out of their way
to spread the virus,
whether there’s a role
for criminal law here in terms
of punishing people
for specific acts
that seem to us to be dangerous
to other people.
Now, we do already
have criminal laws
that could be applied
in these sorts of situations.
You may recall the sad case
recently of a railway worker
who had been spat
in the face by a person
claiming to have Coronavirus,
and that railway worker sadly
died soon after that incident.
Now, it’s tempting in a case
like that to assume
that criminal activity
has taken place,
but the more difficult question
is to identify exactly what
that criminal activity is,
given that we don’t have
a specific offence
relating to this.
What we do have is an offence
going all the way back to 1861,
which is maliciously inflicting
grievous bodily harm
on another person.
This is section
20 of the Offences
Against the Person Act 1861,
and this makes it punishable
for up to five years
to inflict GBH,
grievous bodily harm,
in a variety of ways.
Currently, the offence,
the section 20 offence,
can be used
in cases, for example,
of HIV transmission.
So, if a person
has sexual intercourse
with another without disclosing
that they are HIV positive
and that other person,
the sexual partner,
then becomes infected by them,
then this is a case
of maliciously inflicting
grievous bodily harm.
Covid-19 is arguably,
or potentially, even
more deadly than HIV,
in the sense that it
is a new infection against which
we have no natural immunity,
and currently it seems
that we don’t really even have
very effective treatments
for people who are
infected with Covid-19.
So, it would seem
natural to suggest
that we could simply extend our
existing criminal laws relating
to grievous bodily harm,
potentially also manslaughter,
to include Covid-19.
But this does pose
certain difficulties that,
as lawyers, we need to think
about fairly carefully.
Criminal prosecution
is generally understood
to make sense in situations
where a person has done
some particular thing
which has caused
some particular harm
for which we can hold
that person responsible
and punish them.
So, for example in the case
of HIV transmission,
there are certain limited routes
to becoming infected,
so we know,
or in most cases we can know,
who we put on trial
for inflicting that particular
kind of grievous bodily harm.
Can we say the same
for instances of
Covid-19 transmission?
Really, there are
two kinds of problems
that arise here.
The first of these is causation.
Is it actually possible to prove
that one person
was infected by another,
given what we know about
how Covid-19 is transmitted?
HIV is transmitted in very
limited numbers of ways,
as I’ve said,
but Covid-19 is a virus
which is transmitted
in a variety of ways,
the potential sources
of infection are typically much
more numerous than for HIV.
So an infected person spitting
in the face of another
who then contracts the virus
would certainly represent
a likely potential cause,
but that wouldn’t
necessarily be enough
for a criminal conviction,
which would need to know
that it wasn’t some other cause
that might be to blame.
So that’s the first
problem, causation.
The second is
whether a prosecutor
would be able to prove
that the defendant had
the necessary guilty mind.
So in the offence that
I’ve been referring to,
maliciously inflicting
grievous bodily harm,
the prosecution would have
to prove that the defendant
recklessly inflicted that harm,
which means that
they consciously took
an unjustifiable risk,
that what they were doing
could lead to bodily harm.
For HIV and other STI cases,
it’s now generally assumed
that failing to inform
a sexual partner
that one is HIV positive
or infected with an STI,
a serious STI,
does constitute taking
an unjustifiable risk,
but Covid-19’s not
quite like this.
If we were to include Covid-19
amongst the list of species
of grievous bodily harm,
should we be limiting it only
to those instances in which
a person really does go
out of their way
to infect another person,
such as spitting in the face?
Or should we, could we,
criminalise activity that is
much more routine,
going into a public
place for example,
a crowded public place,
when one knows one
is infected with Covid-19?
Would this be taking
an unjustifiable risk
for the purposes of the offence
of maliciously inflicting
grievous bodily harm?
Now, these are questions
to be worked out in the courts.
One thing to keep in mind is
that we do not necessarily need
to have any new legislation
in order to say
that Covid-19 is in fact
grievous bodily harm and, hence,
if a person dies
from the infection,
that this could be
a case of manslaughter.
It is within the court’s
power to say
that the existing laws,
the 1861 laws,
can be interpreted to include
a new virus like that.
Whether they’ll do
that or not we don’t know,
we will have to see.
And I will leave you
with that thought.
Thank you for your attention.
Goodbye.
Thank you very much, David,
for that taster lecture.
Hopefully, that gives you a bit
of a flavour of what it would be
like to study law
here at Southampton,
the sorts of legal questions
and issues that are coming up,
and questions that we
would be putting to you,
as students, to think about.
Now, I just want
to outline the law degrees
that we offer at Southampton.
There are a number
of three-year programmes
that we provide.
The main programme is the normal
three-year law degree.
In addition, we have,
for instance, a three-year law
with psychology programme,
where you will spend two thirds
of your time studying law
and one third of your time
studying psychology,
essentially exploring
the human mind.
We also have
some four-year programmes.
We have two study-abroad
programmes, the European
Legal Studies degree,
and also the International
Legal Studies degree.
And more information
is available, of course,
on the website.
The idea with both
of those programmes is
that you would spend
the first two years of
your law degree in Southampton,
then you would spend
your third year abroad,
at one of our partner
institutions overseas,
and then, finally,
return to complete
your final year
of your law degree
back in Southampton.
In addition, we
have an opportunity
that we call
the Year in Employment,
and that’s an opportunity
that’s available to
all Southampton undergraduates,
including those in
the Law School.
So the idea here would be
that you would complete
the first two years
of your law study
in the Law School,
then you would spend
your third year in employment,
gaining valuable work experience
to help set you up
for your future career,
and then you would return
for your fourth year,
your final year,
to complete your law studies
at the law school.
I’ll talk a little bit
more about the Year
in Employment shortly.
So, here’s a representation
of what the three-year
law degree looks like.
And of course,
feel free to pause
the video to take a closer look.
The idea is
that you study a number
of core modules over the course
of Year 1 and Year 2.
In addition, you
have optional modules,
beginning in Year 1,
and then increasing in Year
2 and then into Year 3 as well.
In Year 3,
you have free choice
from a large list
of optional modules.
In addition in Year 3,
you will be
doing a dissertation,
a 10,000-word independent
research project,
and that’s a fantastic
opportunity to really get
your teeth into a legal question
that is of interest to you.
It’s entirely up to you
what you want to work on
in your dissertation.
And as I mentioned,
if you decide to spend
your third year
abroad or in employment,
then you’d return
in your fourth year
to complete that final year.
This shows some
of the optional modules
that you can do over the course
of your degree,
including in Year 2 and Year 3.
The full list of optional
modules is considerable,
so please do have
a look at the website.
It’s a long list,
and there are some really
interesting modules on there.
For instance, healthcare law,
international law,
which is an area
I’m interested in.
In Year 3, topics such as
intellectual property law,
globalisation and law,
law and the human body,
and of course global health,
which is of particular
concern at the moment.
Turning now to a very
important topic, careers.
I just want to talk a little bit
about some of the ways in which
the Law School will prepare you
for the big wide world,
the world of work.
I mentioned earlier
the opportunity
that we call the Year
in Employment at Southampton.
So, the idea here is
that you would spend
two years studying law,
your third year
gaining work experience
over the course of that year,
and then returning
for your final year,
your fourth year,
to complete your legal studies.
I just want to give you
some examples of law students
who have taken advantage
of this opportunity,
and some of the things
that they’ve done.
So, for instance,
we have had law students gaining
work experience over the course
of that year at Renault,
the car company,
at Southampton Football Club,
Southampton City Council.
We also have a really exciting
opportunity with Reed Smith,
a global law firm,
which is offering
five year-long placements
to Southampton law students.
In addition, at the Law School
we organise an annual Law Fair,
which is attended
by over 50 law firms
and other legal organisations.
And when it comes
to career destinations,
our graduates pursue exciting
careers in the legal profession,
whether at the bar,
they may practice as solicitors
at leading law firms,
they may join the government
legal profession.
And of course
because the law degree
at Southampton is
a rigorous degree and,
for that reason,
valued by employers,
we have graduates going
into other professions as well,
such as government,
media and industry.
Lastly, we have a range of
opportunities available for you
at Southampton Law School
to help you build your CV
and prepare yourself
for a successful career.
There’s a wide range,
please do have a look
at the website
for further information
about some of these.
There is one in particular
that I just want
to focus on for now,
and that is
the Marshalling Scheme.
This is a scheme
that’s open to law students
in the second year
of their law degree,
and the idea is
that they essentially go
and shadow a practising judge,
a working judge, in London.
There are a number
of judges in London
who are Southampton graduates,
and with whom the Law School
maintains close links,
and this is
a fantastic opportunity
for second-year law students
to spend some time with a judge,
sitting in on cases,
listening to those cases,
discussing what’s going on
with the judge in question.
You’d be hard-pressed
to find another opportunity
like this that’s
available to undergraduates
at other UK law schools.
So that’s about it from me.
If you have any questions,
please do get in touch.
We’d be delighted
to hear from you.
You can write to us
at our email address,
and of course we are present
on various social
media platforms as well.
Thank you very much
for joining us,
and take care.
