Who? Anne Tyson, 41-year-old independent consultant with virtual law firm NetworkLaw, who specialises in personal injury law.

Why is she in the news? Represents the family of the three-year-old victim of paedophile Craig Sweeney, whose sentence last week provoked criticism from John Reid, the Home Secretary, and Vera Baird QC, a junior minister at the Department for Constitutional Affairs. Cardiff Crown Court heard that Sweeney, who had already been released early from jail for an assault on another child, abducted the girl from her home in Cardiff and sexually assaulted her at a halfway house for released prisoners. The girl was found after being thrown from Sweeney's car when he crashed following a police chase. Sweeney had been spotted driving without lights and jumping a red light. He admitted kidnap, three charges of sexual assault, and dangerous driving, and was sentenced to life in prison, but the sentencing judge, the Recorder of Cardiff, John Griffith Williams QC, said he could be eligible for parole in slightly more than five years. The Crown Prosecution Service said it was submitting papers to the Attorney-General, Lord Goldsmith, for him to decide whether to take the case to the Court of Appeal. Criticism of the sentence also prompted the Lord Chancellor, Lord Falconer, to comment that the fault lay not with the judge, but with the system under which he was required to operate. Ms Baird later retracted her comments.


Background: Law degree and legal practice course at Liverpool John Moores University, followed by a training contract at Birkenhead firm Carpenters. After qualifying in 2000, she took time off to have a family before returning to work part-time at Bartlett & Sons in Liverpool. To combine more effectively family life and career progression, she joined NetworkLaw in March 2006.


Route to the case: 'I got the case via the Internet, under an agreement with a claims management company.'


Thoughts on the case: 'It's an absolutely dreadful case. Everything about it makes me so angry and there's a tiny child in the middle of it. The family sees the sentence as an insult to their daughter and have called on the government to review the sentencing guidelines urgently. In this particular case, I would like to see an increase in the sentence. There also needs to be an investigation into the fact that when Sweeney came out of prison for a previous assault on a child, he was housed in accommodation with other paedophiles. More generally, I would like to see the abolition of the automatic entitlement to parole and the reduction in sentence for a guilty plea, especially for assaults on pre-pubescent children.'


Dealing with the media: 'It's been absolutely exhausting - it's gone from just being in my office at my computer to non-stop attention. I knew it would be high profile, but I don't think any of us expected it to be quite like it has been. The media have all been very supportive and sympathetic, but it's been very tiring.'