Sue Stapely, PR doyenne of the Law Society who worked on Doctor Who and campaigned to free Sally Clark

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06-05-2025

Sue Stapely, who has died aged 79, began her career with the BBC, working on shows including Doctor Who and Z Cars; she retrained as a solicitor and in 1989 she joined the Law Society, the professional body for solicitors, to head its media relations operation, helping to turn the society into an effective lobbying organisation.
Along the way, as a member of the SDP, she stood as a candidate for the party in the 1987 general election and was the first national chair of the 300 Group, which aimed to encourage more women into politics. Later on she worked pro bono on behalf of the campaign to free Sally Clark, the 37-year-old solicitor convicted in 1999 of the murder of her two infant sons. The convictions were eventually overturned in 2003, though Sally Clark never recovered from the experience and was found dead at her home in 2007.
Susan Sly was born on July 11 1946 to Stanley Sly and Kathleen, née MacIvor, and joined the BBC in 1966. During her time with Doctor Who she was an uncredited director's assistant on The Invasion (1968), in which the second Doctor, Patrick Troughton, takes on an army of Cybermen. She was involved in the scene in which the cyborgs march down the steps outside St Paul's Cathedral, even talking her then partner into one of the costumes.
In 1972 she worked, again uncredited, on the series The Curse of Peladon, with the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee. 'I recall vividly Alpha Centauri and a range of rather louche monsters and some fairly dodgy special effects, as well as rather too much time spent in the cold water tank in Ealing Studios filming fight sequences,' she told the Law Society Gazette.
Sally and Stephen Clark, 1999: Sue Stapely offered her help pro bono in co-ordinating media interest in the case of Sally Clark - David Burges
In 1968 she married Simon Stapely and after leaving the BBC to start a family in 1973 she studied law at Kingston University, and at the College of Law, where she qualified as a solicitor while her two sons were still young. After working for several years as a manager at various Citizens Advice bureaus, she joined the solicitors Heald Nickinson, where she became a partner, heading its family law department and setting up its public affairs department.
In 1987 she was selected as SDP candidate for the safe Conservative seat of Chertsey and Walton, and expressed optimism that more women would be returned at the 1988 general election. 'When Mrs Thatcher was made prime minister many women were delighted,' she said, 'But they see her style of government now and her total refusal to promote women as unhelpful.'
When the Law Society hired her to blow the dust off its PR in 1989, following the introduction of the 1988 Legal Services Act, which opened up legal services to a wider range of professionals, she jumped at the chance to head a new press and parliamentary unit.
She pioneered the Law Society's Make a Will Week annual event, which gave some stuffier members of the profession the vapours when it was launched in 1991. Solicitors were encouraged to don lycra suits and pose as a Superman-style comic book character, 'Will Power' and dispatched to their local supermarkets to hand out promotional literature in a joint project with Safeway.
She then launched a battle to save legal aid, in response to the Lord Chancellor's cuts to legal-aid eligibility levels, holding fringe meetings at party conferences and revitalising the Society's network of public relations and parliamentary liaison officers. In 1992 the campaign drew 2,000 solicitors to a lobby of Parliament.
Three years later she came up with the idea of National Law Week, 'to show the positive side of the legal profession and to have some fun at the same time'. The first event saw more than 1,500 lawyers donning tracksuits for a three-and-a-half-mile run through the City; others threw open their doors to offer free legal advice, visited schools to explain the law and legal rights to young people, or went abseiling or go-karting, donated blood, or performed on stage to raise funds for charity.
In 1972 she worked with the third Doctor, Jon Pertwee (pictured), recalling 'a range of rather louche monsters and some fairly dodgy special effects' - Alamy
Shortly after she took up her role at the Law Society, Sue Stapely wrote to her old employers to beg the Archers scriptwriters to inject some professional dynamism into the terminally dull Ambridge solicitor Mark Hebden. She was invited to a meeting, became an adviser – and she remained on board long after Hebden's demise. She advised the scriptwriters on everything from agricultural tenancies, to the creation of the Asian female lawyer Usha Gupta, to the three-month imprisonment of mother-of-two Susan Carter for harbouring her fugitive brother Clive, which inspired the national 'Free the Ambridge One' campaign.
'It all got to a heady peak when I got a call from Michael Howard, who had returned from a trip abroad to be greeted by the constituent who started the campaign, requesting he overturn the sentence,' she recalled. Instead she provided the then Home Secretary details of similar cases, all of which involved equally harsh sentences.
A regular contributor to programmes like Any Questions and Woman's Hour, Sue Stapely became famous within the profession for her media relations training courses. After one such event, a practice partner wrote to her to say that while the experience had been stimulating and challenging, '[a certain partner] is, on the whole, as well as can be expected. The men in white coats are optimistic that he will be available to sign letters and file his post within a few days.'
In 1994 she published Media Relations for Lawyers (republished and updated in 2003), which included such sage advice as 'Stop pumping out press releases like shotgun blasts'; 'Stop patronising journalists. Some of them aren't as smart as you, but some are even smarter'; and 'Never lie, for as soon as your lies are spotted (and they will be) you will be permanently discredited.'
Sue Stapely left the Law Society in 1995 following reports of strained relations with its newly elected president Martin Mears, and moved into reputation management as a director of the consultants Fishburn Hedges. She also did work for Edge International and Quiller Consultants, in addition to running her own consultancy from 2001.
That year, suspecting a miscarriage of justice, she offered her help pro bono in co-ordinating media interest in the case of Sally Clark, who had been widely reviled in the media after being found guilty of murdering her two infant sons. The tide began to turn in May 2001 when, following a failed first appeal, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, in an unprecedented move, decided not to strike Sally Clark off the Roll of Solicitors. Sue Stapely used this decision as a launchpad for discussing a potential miscarriage of justice with the media.
Subsequent investigations of the facts in the case and support from individual journalists and medical experts raised questions about the validity of the statistical and medical evidence used in Sally's trial. Then in July 2002, when the news broke that the case had been sent back to the Court of Appeal, Sue Stapely put the brakes on all media activity to ensure that the case was not jeopardised.
Silence was maintained until the appeal was heard in January 2003, when Sally Clark's conviction was overturned. Edward Fennell in The Times described Sue Stapely's work on behalf of the campaign as 'outstanding'.
Among an extensive CV of voluntary activities, Sue Stapely served as a governor of the Royal Shakespeare Company, chairman of Playground Proms (bringing classical music to schools in deprived areas) and a trustee of the London Academy of Music & Dramatic Art. She was a founding board member of the Media Standards Trust and raised funds for homeless and children's charities.
Sue Stapely's marriage was dissolved in 2002, and in 2012 she married David Fitt. He survives her with the two sons of her first marriage.
Sue Stapely, born July 11 1946, died April 29 2025
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