Dr Ilona Cairns

Biography

Ilona studied Law at the University of Edinburgh before completing an LLM in Law and Society at the University of Victoria, Canada. Ilona joined the School of Law as an AHRC-funded PhD student in 2011 before being appointed as lecturer in 2014. She was promoted to senior lecturer in 2021.

Ilona has expertise in criminal law, evidence, family law and gender and the law and has experience teaching in these areas at both undergraduate and postgraduate level. Her research focuses mainly on the regulation and reform of the law relating to sexual offences and domestic abuse. She is particularly interested in these issues from an evidential standpoint and several of her publications relate to the Scottish corroboration rule, sexual offences and domestic abuse. Ilona has recently published on the application of the Moorov doctrine in the context of proving the new Scottish offence of domestic abuse and (with Dr Isla Callander) on how this offence applies to children. Her current research project examines how evidential and financial constraints contribute to the minimisation of domestic abuse in Scottish child contact cases.  

Ilona would be open to requests to supervise students with an interest in any aspect of criminal law & justice; the law of evidence; family law and gender & the law (including feminist approaches to law).

Internal Memberships

• Student Progress Convenor (Law)
• Research Committee
• Learning & Teaching Committee
• UG Policy Committee
• Personal tutor

Teaching Responsibilities

Ilona has taught on the following courses at the School of Law:

• Family Law (Ordinary)
• Evidence (Ordinary)
• Criminal Law (Ordinary)
• Gender, Law and Society (Honours)
• Criminal Law (LLM)
• Criminal Evidence & Proof (LLM)