Eric was sacked from his job as a metalworker in the late 1980s due to his involvement in the Anti-Poll Tax campaign. He was offered work with a criminal solicitor and became an accredited duty police-station advisor. He decided to take up an offer to enrol in a law degree course at the University of Kent at Canterbury (UKC) and passed in July 1998.
Eric left the criminal practice after around 10 years to work for the Refugee Legal Centre (RLC) which was being set up as a Home Office project in Dover. He trained as an accredited immigration & asylum advisor. Eric was a senior union representative and helped lead the unsuccessful struggle against the closure of the RLC. Eric worked for Shelter in Dover for a short period until that office was closed due to government cuts.
Eric’s late wife was active in USDAW, the shopworkers’ union. In 2008 he helped build her campaign for General Secretary in which she gained 40% of the vote.
Eric has been a socialist and trade-union activist throughout his life. He is an Accredited Support Companion (ASC) under ss.10-15 of the Employment Relations Act 1999 which entitles him to continue to represent union members. Over the past eight years he has served as the secretary of the South East Kent Trades Union Council, under whose auspices he compiled a book on the Anti-Poll Tax campaign in Kent.
So you could say that Eric earned his law degree in UKC but has also been educated at the University of Adversity.
