Patricia was born in Belfast and has spent many years working in and for the wider community in a range of roles (including as an adviser with the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, manager of an outreach advice centre, and as an NVQ teacher and Internal Verifier of community work qualifications).
Patricia is now Assistant Professor at Northumbria University at Newcastle. She has extensive research experience in linguistics, specifically forensic linguistics, in which she examines police documents and the language choices made by officers, prosecutors, and victims and survivors of gendered violence.
Patricia’s work includes the investigation and analysis of police reporting, particularly the attribution and deflection of blame through individual and institutional language choices. She was involved in the work of the Hillsborough Independent Panel and the Independent Panel report into the 2022 Champions League Final in Paris.