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Castaway guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

Eight tracks, a book and a luxury: what would you take to a desert island? Guests share the soundtrack of their lives.

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Kirsty Young

Phil Scraton

Cathy Drysdale

Desert Island Discs: Professor Phil Scraton

Professor Phil Scraton

05/11/2017

BBC Radio 4 - Desert Island Discs, Professor Phil Scraton

Professor Phil Scraton, academic, is interviewed by Kirsty Young.

Kirsty Young interviews Professor Phil Scraton, criminologist, academic and author.

Professor Phil Scraton is Professor Emeritus at the School of Law at Queen's University Belfast. A criminologist and author, he's director of the Childhood, Transition and Social Justice Initiative and was lead researcher of the Hillsborough Independent Panel. 

Born into a working class family in Wallasey in the Wirral in 1949, he attended a seminary at the age of 12. Deciding the religious life was not for him he worked as a bus conductor before attending Liverpool University where he read Sociology. 

His early work with Travellers and Liverpool's black community led to an interest in deaths in custody and prison conditions. Then, following the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 he would spend the next 28 years researching and writing about the disaster - his book Hillsborough: The Truth was first published in 1999. The Hillsborough Independent Panel's 2012 report led to a second inquest which concluded in April 2016 that the 96 people who died had been unlawfully killed and that fans behaviour had not contributed to the disaster in any way. 

Phil and his partner, Deena, have lived in Belfast since 2003. He has two grown-up sons from his first marriage.

Presenter: Kirsty Young
Producer: Cathy Drysdale.

Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

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