Stephen Twist

Stephen Twist has been in continuous practice as a barrister since 1979, first in London, and since 1988 in York, Middlesbrough and Newcastle upon Tyne. He has undertaken high profile fraud cases at the Central Criminal Court, assisted the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee, the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors, and the National Computing Centre on digital invasion, fraud and security.

Stephen’s legal blog is to be found here: and dispute resolution blog here.

Professional area: Barrister: litigation, arbitration and mediation.

Practice area: Professional Regulation and Governance, Cyber security.

Services: Legal advice, services as independent arbitrator and mediator.

He currently practices part-time.

 Specialist areas

• Governance and Regulatory  

Stephen currently serves as a Governor of the County Durham and Darlington NHS Foundation Trust, Chairs their Audit and Governance Committee, and is Chair/moderator of the Trust’s Organ and Tissue Donation Committee.

He has acted as specialist legal adviser to seven Police Services/Authorities on professional conduct and regulatory matters and been instructed in serious misconduct cases in the North of England, including Operations Lancet, Eagle, Pool police corruption cases. He was appointed independent legal adviser to police misconduct panels and was the author of ‘A Guide to Panels under the Police (Conduct) Regulations’ published in March 2004 by the Police Foundation. His other publications include the Home Office presentation paper ‘ADR Management and Resolution of Complaints in relation to Police Misconduct’. In 2004 he was guest presenter at the Strategic Command course at the Scottish Police College, Tulliallan Castle, Fife.

• Cyber Security

Building on pioneering work with the Parliamentary Information Technology Committee, the Chartered Institute of Internal Auditors, and the National Computing Centre,  Stephen advises in the fields of cyber risks and technology, digital implementation challenges and artificial intelligence. In January 2024 he was awarded Cyber Essentials Plus by Evolve North.

• Arbitration, mediation and ADR 

Stephen qualified as an accredited Commercial Mediator with CEDR  (1999), a panel mediator with the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators London (2000), undertook advanced commercial mediation training (2001) and was subsequently appointed Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. He has completed community, family and employment/workplace mediation training (2003), NOCN Level 3 mediation skills (2004), restorative practices training with IIRP Europe (2014).

Guest presenter on ‘ADR Systems for the Public Sector’ at the CEDR National Conference 2000 and a former member of CEDR’s public sector working party, Stephen assisted in implementing the Restorative Justice scheme for Darlington and was a panel member of the Youth Justice Service. He is a former member of the European Forum for Restorative Justice.

Stephen has worked with numerous public authorities and the Home Office in the development of ADR in relation to professional standards, health service conciliation, complaints and grievance processes involving internal and public disputes including transnational e-mediation processes.

• Disability and Inclusion

Stephen represented children charged with homicide of a parent (R v Howells and R v Walton), and those with significant disability (R v Alani: Pinderfields Hospital murders).

He has advised on disability issues since the 1980’s when he undertook training in signing at the City Literary Institute, London, leading to CACDP Part 1 in British Sign Language. He is a former member of the Borad of Management of the British Deaf Association  and has lectured and presented on issues relating to deafness, and mental health. His broadcasts include BBC ‘See hear’, ITV ‘Listening Eye’ and deafness documentaries for Channel 4, working with Craig Flynn for ‘Deaf Relay’ at Lancashire College. He is interested to protect and facilitate access for deaf people to human rights and public services.

He was keynote speaker at the national conference for the British Society for Mental Health and Deafness in June 2001 dealing with access to justice, and one of few hearing legal professionals to have worked in this field for over two decades. He has undertaken listening therapy training, and was a national conciliator with the Disability Conciliation Service under the DRC from 2004 to 2006. He currently assists disadvantaged minorities to access the professions.

• Enabling Access 

Having pioneered public access to the Bar by incepting and piloting the first two schemes under ‘Bar Direct’ scheme in 1999, Stephen assisted the Bar Council’s Public Access Committee and presented at the Bar Annual Conference on direct access. He was one of the first barristers to complete formal public access training. He was a founding member of Public Access Bar Association.