FAP Members

Member

Biography

David Graham (Chair)

David Graham is a barrister specialising in public and administrative law, practising at Francis Taylor Building chambers in London.  His work mostly relates to planning, licensing, education, highways and other government functions, as well as the governance and procedures of public bodies.  This includes interpretation of constitutive documents and the conduct of administrative appeals.  

David has particular experience and interest in environmental law and nature conservation.  Prior to qualifying in 2011, David read History at Trinity College, Cambridge before studying law at City, University of London. David has been a member in the London Region since 2010, campaigning in local, European and general elections; in by-elections; and in the EU referendum campaign.  He has been a long-standing volunteer for a charity helping destitute asylum seekers.

William Charnley
(Vice-Chair) 

William Charnley has served on the Federal Appeals Panel member since 2016.  A corporate lawyer based in the City of London, he has a broad corporate practice advising on IPO’s and securities offerings, takeovers, private equity transactions, joint ventures and regularly advises boards on governance and risk issues.  In addition, William is a fellow of Hughes Hall, University of Cambridge, holds a number of charitable positions, including being a member of the Court of the Draper’s Company, one of the pre-eminent City Livery Companies where he was Master from July 2016 – July 2017 and is currently Chairman of the Finance and General Purposes Committee. 

William also has a number of non-executive directorship appointments and is an Honorary Group Captain 601 (County of London) Sqn RAuxAF.  He has a keen interest in country pursuits, cycling, art, opera, European nobility and wine.

Catherine Smart
(Vice-Chair)

After Catherine took early retirement, she became a Justice of the Peace and sat on the Cambridge Magistrates Bench for 15 years.   She was a Liberal Democrat Cambridge City Councillor for 18 years.  She also became a Returning Officer for internal LD elections and was the Chair of the Regional Candidates Committee (RCC) for 5 years:  as such she was on the English Candidates Committee and served on a number of panels dealing with appeals and complaints. She was on the English Appeals Panel for several years before being elected to the Federal Appeals Panel 2015-20 then being re-elected for a further five year term in 2021. 

Jacqueline Bell

Jacquie, who retired from Social Work in 2016, joined the Liberal Democrats in 1989 after many years as a deliverer. 

Jacquie has been a Dunbar Community Councillor since 2000 aside from 2007-12 when she was a member of East Lothian Council. Jacquie has also been a candidate many times for Holyrood and Westminster elections. She is a longstanding member of the Scottish Executive, Policy and Conference Committees and a past Convenor of Scottish Liberal Democrat Women. She is an Executive member of her local party, LD4SOS , LDEG and SLDW.

Anthony Fairclough 

Anthony Fairclough joined the Liberal Democrats in 2000 and lives in London. His professional and party background shows wide experience in thoughtful and measured decision making. He has been an election agent for all types of election, including most recently for a target parliamentary constituency. He is a trained party returning officer, having managed multiple selections including for the 2016 London elections.

Professionally he has held senior management, legal advice/research and compliance roles for the last 15 years, including implementing the response to GDPR for a barristers’ chambers, and providing direct data protection and complaints advice and support.  He is leader of the largest ever Lib Dem group on Merton Council.

Harry Samuels 

Harry Samuels is originally from Cornwall, but is now a barrister practising from a set of chambers in London, specialising in commercial, business, property and trusts law. His previous experience includes serving on the London Local Parties Committee, investigating disciplinary cases for the party, representing clients pro bono before the Employment Tribunal, and sitting on disciplinary and appellate panels in other voluntary organisations.

He has been a member of the party for over six years, holding various roles in local and general election campaigns, and most recently served as Communications Officer for Young Liberals. In his spare time, he is a keen musician, and is working towards fluency in the Cornish language.

Laura Coyle 

Laura has been a Lib Dem member since she was 18. She served on Haringey Borough Council for six years in the early 2000s and more recently stood as parliamentary candidate in the Henley constituency in 2017 and 2019, helping to put the party firmly into second place on 30 per cent of the vote in 2019.

Outside of politics, Laura is a partner at Turpin Miller LLP, a law firm in Oxford, where she specialises in housing legal aid law, representing the homeless and tenants facing possession proceedings.

She lives in West Berkshire with husband Ray, a charity director, and their ten year old son.

Russel McPhate 

Born and brought up in Glasgow but having lived in Fife for most of his adult life, Russel has been a member of the Liberal Democrats since the party’s inception. He has been a candidate in both local authority and Westminster elections. He has also been an agent in elections at all levels from local authority to European Parliament and is currently an office bearer in his local party.

Professionally, Russel has been a solicitor for nearly 35 years specialising, latterly, in Court related matters including family matters, tenancy disputes and criminal law. He also has experience in both Anti-Money Laundering and Data Protection issues.

Bridget Fox 

Bridget Fox joined the Liberal Party as a student and was a founder member of the Liberal Democrats. Over the decades since, she has served as a local and regional party officer and election agent, as a councillor including six years as Deputy Leader of LB Islington, and five times a PPC including a target seat campaign, giving her a range of frontline party experience. 

More recently she has been a complaints investigator and is currently a returning officer in London Region. She also has experience of participating in school appeal panels, Planning Inspectorate hearings and local government tribunals. 

After a first career in library and information management, Bridget now works in policy and advocacy for a national environmental charity. Bridget joined the Federal Appeals Panel in Spring 2023.

David Cole-Hamilton 

David has been a Liberal / Liberal Democrat since 1974 but had difficulty joining the party until later. He has been leafletting in NE Fife since moving there in 1985 and has enjoyed watching the strength of the party grow in that constituency. He is delighted that all levels of Government local, Scottish and UK are represented by Liberal Democrats in NE Fife.

David retired from being a Chemistry Professor at the University of St Andrews in 2014 but during his time in the University he sat on a range of committees including those judging whether or not academic misconduct had taken place, whether certain professors were adequately remunerated and chaired a panel, which investigated alleged misconduct by a very senior member of the University community.

After retiring, David was President of the European Chemical Society, which involved many evenly balanced debates, all of which he chaired, and is currently trying to set up a company to exploit research carried out by his research group at the end of his career,

In the interests of full disclosure, David is the father of the current Leader of the Scottish Liberal Democrats, Alex Cole-Hamilton.