Herbert Smith Freehills Disability Mooting Championship 2020
The 2020 Herbert Smith Freehills Disability Mooting Championship took place on 14 November 2020. Twelve teams competed in the group stages, and the four top-ranked teams advanced to the Semi-Finals and Grand Final. This year's moot problem concerned an appeal to the Supreme Court, and considered both whether a prosthetic limb can be considered an imitation firearm, and whether damage to a mobility aid cannot amount to actual bodily harm.
In the Grand Final, Amy Gregg (Exeter College) and Patrick Hall (St Cross College) of Oxford University went up against Maya Edelstein and Michael Tucker (both Pembroke College) of Cambridge University. The Grand Final was judged by Professor Jonathan Herring (DM Wolfe-Clarendon Fellow in Law and Vice Dean of Exeter College, University of Oxford), Dr Brian Sloan (Fellow and Director of Studies in Law at Robinson College, University of Cambridge), Zoe Johnson QC (Barrister at QEB Hollis Whiteman Chambers) and Daniel Hudson (Corporate Crime and Investigations Partner at Herbert Smith Freehills). In a very close decision, Cambridge were awarded the win.
The Grand Final was followed by a Panel Discussion on the theme “The Right to Health: has the COVID-19 pandemic eroded the health equality and access to adequate healthcare for disabled people in the UK?” The Chair was Professor Tom Shakespeare (Professor of Disability Research, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine). The panellists included Steve Broach (Barrister at 39 Essex Chambers), Kush Kanodia (Chief Disability Officer at Kaleidoscope Group), Lucy Watts (Disability Rights Activist), and Baroness Campbell of Surbiton (Disability Rights Activist and a crossbench peer of the House of Lords).
The Organising Committee for the 2020 competition consisted of Dr Marie Tidball (Chair), Dr Luke Rostill (Vice Chair), Dr Rachel Clement Tolley (Vice Chair), Sekela Ngamilo (Student Chair), Katie Bacon (Student Vice Chair), Bryony Toon (Student Vice Chair), Selin Cavdar (Access Officer), George Twinn (Treasurer), and Avantika Sengupta (Communications Officer).
Oxford Grand Final Team: Amy Gregg (Exeter College), Patrick Hall (St Cross College)