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University of Liverpool alumna and US District Court Judge, Wendy Beetlestone, travelled to the Cayman Islands earlier this month to deliver a lecture to staff and students at Truman Bodden Law School.

Judge Beetlestone graduated from the University of Liverpool with a degree in Philosophy in 1984, and went on to forge a successful career as a television journalist before entering the legal world a decade later.

She was nominated to the role of District Court Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania by Barack Obama in 2014. Her jurisdiction covers everything from constitutional challenges and violations of federal statute to drug and gun crime and other organised crime activity, as well as complex fraud. Most recently, Judge Beetlestone was instrumental in issuing an injunction to block a controversial change to women’s reproductive healthcare rights by the Trump administration.

Mitchell Davies, Director of Truman Bodden Law School which is affiliated to the University of Liverpool, said of the event:

“Judge Beetlestone’s lecture opened by providing her audience with a brief overview of the history of the American political and legal systems, moving on to address the historical shifts in the balance of power between the various branches of government and the rise in power of the Judiciary. This provided a necessary backdrop and insight into the present day question, currently before the US courts, regarding President Trump’s ban on travel into the United States on people from various countries - including Muslim countries- into the United States and how they were handled by the judiciary. The audience clearly greatly enjoyed Judge Beetlestone’s topical presentation, as evidenced by the large number of questions that she fielded from the audience at the end of her lecture.”