About Kerry Daynes

Kerry walked into her first prison at twenty-one, armed with a psychology degree and, as she freely admits, a great deal of misplaced confidence. She walked out nearly thirty years later with something considerably more useful: a forensic understanding of why people do what they do, and what it actually takes to change anything.

In the years between, she worked in maximum-security prisons and secure psychiatric hospitals with some of the most dangerous, damaged, and misunderstood human beings in Britain — serial killers, violent and sexual offenders, stalkers, arsonists. And the prison officers, police, judges, social workers, and systems that surround them all. She was also, at one point, stabbed on duty. She went back to work.

Kerry founded a private practice in 2002, building a reputation for engaging with the most complex and challenging clients. She advised the government on the management of high-risk individuals, served as an expert witness in homicide cases, worked as a psychological specialist in major police investigations, and lectured in Applied Psychology to postgraduate students.

She is a Consultant Psychologist, Chartered Psychologist, Chartered Scientist, and HCPC Registered Practitioner Forensic Psychologist. She keeps the acronyms to a minimum. The work speaks for itself.

Kerry was first invited onto television in 2007. She is now one of the UK's most recognisable faces in true crime and forensic psychology broadcasting — best known as 'The Profiler' on HBO Max and Discovery's long-running series Faking It: Tears of a Crime. She has contributed to productions for the BBC, ITV, Channel 4, Channel 5, Sky, Netflix, and dozens more UK and international broadcasters.

In 2019, Kerry wrote The Dark Side of the Mind, which became a Sunday Times Top Ten bestseller. Its follow-up, What Lies Buried (2021), was longlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction. Both books are praised for their warmth, rigour, and refusal to trade truth for spectacle.

In 2011, the forensic psychologist who had spent years in courtrooms explaining the psychology of obsession became the subject of a six-year stalking campaign. The man had never met her. He built fake websites in her name, poisoned her cat, and sprayed two words on her fence — JILL DANDO — a threat requiring no elaboration. She had to leave her own home.

Kerry did not, to put it mildly, take this lying down. She joined others to campaign for tighter stalking legislation and the introduction of Stalking Protection Orders — laws that have since protected thousands of people. She is currently Trustee of the Suzy Lamplugh Trust, Chair of the National Stalking Consortium, Patron of the National Centre for Domestic Violence, and Patron of Talking2Minds, supporting military and emergency services personnel with PTSD.

She was named UK-wide Inspirational Woman of the Year in 2023 and Cheshire Female of the Year in 2024.

Kerry has been profoundly deaf since 2019. It is mentioned here because it is a fact, and because it has not — by any observable measure — slowed her down.