The Team Behind PEGS

Founding Director

Michelle is the Founding Director of PEGS, having previously worked within the family law and domestic abuse sectors. 

Her own lived experience of CPA – which she does not disclose the specifics of – saw her turn her pain into power and set up the organisation she wished had been available to support her.

Michelle has been named among the top 100 Women in Social Enterprise (WISE) three times as well as winning multiple awards nationally and internationally. She’s been asked to speak at Westminster Domestic Abuse Forum and in front of GPs, safeguarding leads, police forces, church representatives, colleges, social workers, trainee professionals, business leaders and many others.

Her determination that every family should receive appropriate support shines through in all she does – she works alongside key organisations and individuals such as the Domestic Abuse Commissioner’s Office, Department for Work and Pensions and many others to campaign for better services, better support, and better understanding for parents living through CPA.

Director

Elaine Higgins is a commercial and engagement professional specialising in security and forensic science. She is driven by a strong commitment to supporting victims of crime and championing those working across the blue light sector. Outside her career, Elaine enjoys playing tennis, nurturing her garden, and travelling to France. Her most memorable adventure to date has been riding a horse across the vast landscapes of Mongolia — an experience that continues to inspire her sense of courage and curiosity.

Director

Emma is a Management Accountant who enjoys turning complex numbers into practical, easy-to-understand insights. She is passionate about helping her clients make confident financial decisions and stay on track with their goals. When she is not working with spreadsheets, you’ll usually find her spending time with her many animals as they’ve always been a big part of her life including a herd of guinea pigs and a trio of pygmy goats.

Board Member

Shani Wright is a qualified social worker who works for a local authority. Before this role she was an education welfare worker, learning mentor and qualified careers adviser too.

She has over 15 years’ experience working with children and families making sure that the children’s voice is paramount but also supporting parents get the right support for themselves to improve their situation.

Board Member

Dr Andrew Newman is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist. He regularly works with professional networks where there is concern within the family about child to parent abuse.

He has numerous roles that includes working in a Community Forensic Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service (FCAMHS) that covers a region of England.

In this role, he works with professional networks offering consultation and assessment where a young person (under 18) is considered a risk to others and presents with mental health difficulties, to include neurodiversity and learning disability.

Dr Newman is also the national clinical lead for the MICA Trial. This multi-site Randomised Control Trial is exploring if Mentalization Based Treatment (MBT) alongside FCAMHS as usual is more effective at reducing violence and aggression in children and adolescents than FCAMHS alone. He is also the clinical lead for psychology input into two Youth Justice Services. Moreover, he is the current Child and Adolescent Representative & Treasure of the British Psychological Society (BPS), Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP), Faculty of Clinical Forensic Psychology.

In addition, he regularly offers training to external agencies and presents at conferences. He offers expert witness assessment for the family court, crown court, youth court, magistrates and parole board and has a number of publications within the field of psychology.

Board Member

Vickie Crompton is the Domestic Abuse & Sexual Violence Partnership Manager for Peterborough and was the strategic lead for domestic abuse across Cambridgeshire from 2010.  In this role, she is responsible for the MARAC process and the Independent Domestic Violence Adviser service, as well as commissioning local domestic abuse and sexual violence services.

She is keen to ensure that the issue of Child to Parent Abuse is addressed effectively across the area, and in her area the Family Respect Project is a service for children and their parents where there is CPA.

Before working in domestic abuse, she was the substance misuse commissioner – responsible for young people’s and adults’ drug and alcohol treatment services in Cambridgeshire for a decade

Vickie promotes a trauma-informed approach to service delivery: “so many people face challenges on a daily basis, services must have kindness and humanity at their heart as an absolute minimum.  CPA can be misunderstood as a failure in parenting, which can feel victim-blaming for those suffering abuse, I am determined to increase awareness and support so that parents no longer need to suffer alone.”

Board Member

Dr. Amanda Holt (BA, MSc, PhD) is a Professor in Criminology at the University of Roehampton in London.

Much of Amanda’s research in recent years has focused on the problem of adolescent family violence. Amanda is the author of the UK’s first book on the topic in 2013, which was recently updated and is now in its second edition: Adolescent-to-Parent Abuse: Current Understandings in Research, Policy and Practice (Policy Press, 2025). She is also the editor of Working with Adolescent Violence and Abuse towards Parents: Approaches and Contexts for Intervention (Routledge, 2016).

Amanda has completed several research projects on adolescent family violence (e.g., see here and here), has spoken about it at international conferences and on national radio and television, and has worked with the UK Home Office to produce the first UK policy guidance on the issue. 

Board Member

I joined the police in 1988 when women weren’t allowed to work alone on nights, had to supervise female prisoners and children and the most senior female officer was an Inspector. I was a natural thief taker and from a very early stage wanted to be a detective (there was one female detective per station).

I was sent to a murder incident room in 1989 as “the goffer” where I made tea, took pieces of paper to different trays, checked the messages, and listed and absorbed everything that was happening around me and I was hooked…murder was where I wanted to be.

I then sought out and got opportunities to work on murder enquiries at every rank of my service and in almost every role. In 2012 I became a senior investigating officer (SIO) at the rank of Inspector and my first case in charge was a domestic homicide. At this time Domestic Homicide reviews were just commencing and so I became integral to that process as well. I have investigated and been part of many homicides over the years but am fascinated about the mother son relationships. Once at trial the two people usually in the public gallery are the mother of the victim and the mother of the offender, both often show unwavering loyalty to their sons. The other influencing factor was the murder of a mother by her son, in what seemed to be an unprovoked and completely unforeseen attack. As the SIO I explored every avenue to try and get some comprehension, there was a subsequent DHR, but nothing was identified that that indicated some influencing factor.

I concluded my career as a Detective Superintendent with responsibility for a Tri-Force murder team in the Southwest, it was my dream job and something that in 1988 was never considered a possibility in policing. 

Since retirement, I have been an expert witness for HM Coroner for the inquests into the deaths of the victims of Stephen Port (a serial killer), I am an associate with HMICFRS inspecting Police and Fire services and I trained as an independent DHR chair and author with AAFDA. I have just completed my 3rd DHR ( a steep learning curve) and am commissioned for two more. 

I am also on the board for an international charity Threds of Red which delivers a programme to third world countries teaching girls to make sustainable sanitary wear to help keep them in school. This opportunity came off the back of some voluntary work I was doing in Kenya around FGM. 

We have an established partnership in Cambodia and have extended the programme to include a glasses clinic (it doesn’t matter how you engage with the community to get your message across, you just need a hook!). We are currently engaging with another organisation in Tanzania. 

In opposite I have just been accepted onto the Independent Monitoring Board for prisons, with my local prisons being a category D and a sex offenders’ prison, so I look forward to understanding what rehabilitation really looks like.

Finally, I work closely with the media, usually as a professional commentator on reality crime shows, but podcasts, news items etc. My own podcast “To catch a killer” has had over 1 million downloads and the book “To Hunt a killer” won the True Crime award