Charlotte is a STEP qualified member of the Lifestyle & Estate Planning team at Irwin Mitchell, specialising in the administration and taxation of trusts and estates and the drafting of Lasting Powers of Attorney, Wills and Trusts.

With a background in family law and private client work since qualification as a solicitor in 2014, she is known for her breadth of knowledge and experience in this complicated field, delivering expert advice in a straightforward and personalised manner.

Charlotte was a key member of the award-winning Private Client Team of the Year at the prestigious Manchester Legal Awards 2018.

Having been bereaved by suicide 9 years ago Rebecca received great support from SOBS –Survivors of bereavement by suicide and has volunteered at the Liverpool group for many years and is now an ambassador for the charity.

Rebecca featured in the Bafta nominated documentary ‘Life after Suicide’ in 2015 and was invited to Kensington palace to discuss her bereavement with their Royal Highnesses the now Prince and Princess of Wales.     

Believing passionately in those bereaved receiving the best support possible after a bereavement by suicide, Rebecca took redundancy after 34 years as a senior intelligence analyst in Merseyside Police to study to become a counsellor. She now works with the charity Suicide & Co; their mission to support bereaved individuals to open the conversation around suicide-related grief.    

Rebecca wants to reduce the stigma that suicide bereavement can bring and wants to encourage those bereaved to talk and not feel alone.

Rebecca is a keen cyclist and belongs to a cycling club in Liverpool. Happy outdoors with her dog and spending time with friends and family.

Nikki Scott (BEM) is the founder of Scotty’s Little Soldiers – the charity for bereaved military children and young people. 

After Nikki’s husband was killed in action whilst serving in Afghanistan, she saw the devastating impact on her young children and decided to set up a charity, which has gone on to support hundreds of British Forces children bereaved of a military parent. Scotty’s Little Soldiers provides its members with a variety of specialist bereavement support throughout their childhood, to remind them they are not alone. 

I joined the Irwin Mitchell Manchester office in 2010 when I qualified as a solicitor. 

 My background is psychology: I completed my BSc and MSc in health psychology. I had also previously worked for pharmaceutical companies, and as post-graduate researcher I worked with patients with chronic diseases, devising a model for psychological treatment. 

I work on a wide range of cases, but my real passion is driven by my interest in mental health, this has naturally led me to develop a niche area relating to clinical negligence claims arising from self-inflected death, self-harm, and injuries such as; post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental health illnesses. 

I represent the bereaved at inquests, championing their right for access to justice and a full investigation into how their loved one came about their death. I also have experience in representing the bereaved at inquests where Article 2 of the Human Rights Act has been engaged, the right to life.

I also work on cases relating to birth injuries and oncology cases.

I have been a trustee at Manchester Mind for 8 years and am now the community engagement / well-being officer for Brookburn School PTA. I advocate healthy minds at work in my role as a Mental Health Advocate, and try to approach life and others with a simple mantra, be kind.

I am a partner at Irwin Mitchell and I head up the Tax, Trusts and Estate team in the firm’s Manchester office.

My role involves advising families, business owners and high net worth individuals on all aspects of succession and asset protection planning, including:

- Wills
- Inheritance Tax
- Administration of Estates
- Trusts
- Probate
- Powers of Attorney
- Court of Protection matters
 

 I work with clients to ensure I fully understand their individual needs and tailor the advice accordingly. I look at what they want to achieve and try to find the most efficient and practical way of doing this.

I work with many families who require extra protection for their children, sometimes due to a disability. I advise them on the best way forward to ensure problems aren’t encountered down the line.

Working with business owners I am able to advise them on the most practical way to preserve their wealth and how this might be passed on.

I also help clients handle their affairs to make sure they continue to be dealt with properly in case the client loses the mental capacity to handle it themselves. This includes working with clients who are already beginning to lose their mental capacity.

I work closely with other teams internally as well as other professionals externally. For example, I work with accountants and financial advisors to ensure we take a holistic approach and achieve the best outcome for my clients.

I specialise in the preparation of Wills, Lasting Powers of Attorney and deal with the administration of estates.

 
 I have always been interested in law and started my career in law at 18 via an apprenticeship.

 The most rewarding part of my role is supporting clients, whether that be through a recent bereavement or by supporting family members of a vulnerable person.

I am a partner at Irwin Mitchell and I head up the Tax, Trusts and Estate team in the firm’s Manchester office. My role involves advising families, business owners and high net worth individuals on all aspects of succession and asset protection planning, including:

- Wills
- Inheritance Tax
- Administration of Estates
- Trusts
- Probate
- Powers of Attorney
- Court of Protection matters
 

 I work with clients to ensure I fully understand their individual needs and tailor the advice accordingly. I look at what they want to achieve and try to find the most efficient and practical way of doing this.

I work with many families who require extra protection for their children, sometimes due to a disability. I advise them on the best way forward to ensure problems aren’t encountered down the line.

 
Working with business owners I am able to advise them on the most practical way to preserve their wealth and how this might be passed on.

I also help clients handle their affairs to make sure they continue to be dealt with properly in case the client loses the mental capacity to handle it themselves. This includes working with clients who are already beginning to lose their mental capacity.

I work closely with other teams internally as well as other professionals externally. For example, I work with accountants and financial advisors to ensure we take a holistic approach and achieve the best outcome for my clients.

- CEO & Co-Founder StrongMen

- Bereaved Military Parent

- Cancer Survivor

- Lead Guitarist

- Exercise Enthusiast

Alfie’s Squad is a Community Interest Company set up by Alfie Fitzsimmons, and his mum, Allison Furlong. Their main aim is to support children and their families who have been bereaved by suicide. They decided to create their own peer support groups after being unable to find anything after Alfie lost his dad to suicide in 2017.

Now, at the grand old age of 14, the very first peer support group for children bereaved by suicide has launched, as well as a group for grownups, and the feedback has been overwhelming.

Mo Mansfield join INQUEST in April 2019. Mo is a community organiser, advocate and feminist campaigner for prison abolition. Mo has more than 20 years experience working in the voluntary sector in both front-line and management positions at organisations such as Women at WISH, Women In Prison and the Women’s Resource Centre. Much of their work has focused on providing independent support to criminalised women from a social justice perspective.

Mo is member of Abolitionist Futures and also completed a MSc focused on improving services for people with personality disorders.

Emma has been working with INQUEST since the death of her brother Matthew in 2018 who died a wholly preventable death at the Northern General Hospital in Sheffield following a short and acute period of mental ill health.

Following his death, Emma accessed advice from INQUEST to navigate the complex and disorientating process of post death investigation. She is now part of  INQUEST’s Family Reference Group where bereaved families come together to support each other, campaign for the rights of bereaved people and attempt to ensure that inquests and other post death investigations lead to meaningful change.

Emma is also a PhD student at the University of Lancaster. Her research focuses on how coroners communicate their concerns in Prevention of Future Deaths Reports and the current efficacy of these reports in reducing avoidable harm and death.

Colette Scarbrough-Jelfs is Head of Operations and Partnerships at WAY Widowed and Young.

After joining the charity as a member, following the death of her husband when she was 33, Colette knows first-hand, the struggles of being widowed young and the difficulties and pitfalls of piecing together your new life following Bereavement.

The Charity Widowed and Young, is the only UK charity that offers a peer-to-peer support network for anyone who’s lost a partner before their 51st birthday – marries or not, with or without children, inclusive of sexual orientations, gender, race and religion, empowering over 4,800 members across the UK to find their new normal.

Angela Massey is the Community & In Memory Fundraising Manager for Roy Caste Lung Cancer Foundation and has been an integral part of the charity for six years.  Her career at RCLCF began when she unexpectedly lost her father and father-in-law, during a six-month period, to lung cancer in 2016. Before this time, she was unaware of the charity and its important work. 

Working In-memory with the recently bereaved was raw but also extremely rewarding, being able to help others in their grief became a cathartic release. Her personal experience in loss and grief has provided her with a sincere and compassionate empathy, which has helped to build reliable and trusted relationships with families recently bereaved.  Her understanding has also helped to develop our online bereavement tool ‘Lasting Tribute’ which encourages supporters to honour the life of their loved one in a positive and rewarding way.  

More recently, Angela lost her mum to lung cancer in April 2022, her connection to the charity at this point gave her a greater understanding of how opening up can be extremely difficult for many people. How we talk about death. How we connect with other people on this topic is so important.  Angela is passionate about the need for further development in bereavement services and the awareness of grief and loss support for all.