Dr Matthew Gibson LLB (Hons), LLM, PgDip (BVC), PhD, FHEA

Research Overview

Matt researches criminal law doctrine and theory. In particular, his work focusses on fair labelling in criminal law, a topic on which he has written in the contexts of deceptive sexual relations, involuntary manslaughter, voluntary manslaughter and offences against the person.

Matt is currently writing a monograph on fair labelling (Oxford University Press, forthcoming 2025). That monograph interrogates why fair labelling matters and how it might be achieved in practice. He is also writing an article which will interrogate some of these matters in a shorter form. Related to this work, Matt also looks at criminal-justice policy and law reform as they relate to fair labelling. Most notably, he is a member of the Criminal Law Reform Now Network's project on reforming the law of consent and deception in sexual offences, an area which Matt continues to research. Elsewhere, his work extends to general matters of criminalisation, offence definition and offence classification. He is currently collaborating with colleagues at Liverpool Law School on a project analysing the scope and role of the partial defence to murder of loss of control. In 2022, he became co-author, with Ormerod and Laird, of 'Smith, Hogan, and Ormerod's Criminal Law' (Oxford University Press) - the leading textbook on criminal law in England and Wales.

Separately, Matt is interested in the interaction between criminal law and religion. His work on religious drug use has led to duties as a professional witness in criminal proceedings. He has also investigated criminal law responses to ritual male circumcision as part of a project led by the University of Strasbourg. These results have been published in a major edited collection (Strasbourg University Press, 2016). In connection with these interests, Matt also researches criminal lawmaking and the phenomenon of religious exemptions.