Our Team
Dr Shane McCorristine
Project Lead & Researcher
Shane is a lecturer in History at Newcastle University. He is an interdisciplinary historian with interests in the 'night side' of modern experience - namely social attitudes toward death, crime, dreams, ghosts, and the supernatural. His books include William Corder and the Red Barn Murder: Journeys of the Criminal Body (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and The Spectral Arctic: A History of Dreams and Ghosts in Polar Exploration (2018). Between 2013 and 2015 he was a part of the Wellcome Trust-funded project “Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse” at the University of Leicester.
Dr Patrick Low
Web Designer & Researcher
Patrick is an independent researcher with a particular interest in capital punishment in the North East of England. He is a regular contributor to BBC’s Murder Mystery & My Family and has recently published (co-edited with Dr Clare-Sandford Couch & Helen Rutherford) Execution Culture in Nineteenth Century Britain From Public Spectacle to Hidden Ritual. Between 2013-15 he was web designer and researcher for the Wellcome Trust-funded project “Harnessing the Power of the Criminal Corpse” at the University of Leicester.
Dr Helen Rutherford
Researcher
Helen is an associate professor, and non-practising solicitor, in the Law School at Northumbria University where she teaches civil litigation and inquests law. She is a legal historian with a particular interest in coroners, nineteenth century criminal trials, and lives in the North East of England. She carried out research for the Newcastle and Leeds episodes of David Olusoga's BBC series ‘A House through Time’ (Twenty Twenty Televison) and is the co- editor of Execution Culture in Nineteenth Century Britain From Public Spectacle to Hidden Ritual with Patrick Low and Clare Sandford-Couch.
Dr Clare Sandford-Couch
Researcher
Clare is a Visiting/Associate Lecturer in the Law School at Leeds Beckett University. She practiced as a solicitor and was Senior Lecturer in law at Northumbria University and Visiting Lecturer at Newcastle University. She has a PhD in Art History from the University of Edinburgh. She has published on legal history, art history and the role of the arts and humanities in legal education. Her research interests largely address interactions of law, legal history and visual culture. Current research includes histories of crime and policing in nineteenth century Newcastle upon Tyne and the history of Newcastle Gaol, with a focus on the women prisoners.
