Jonathan Glen Merritt

Jonathan Glen Merritt is a Senior Lecturer in Law at De Montfort University, within the Leicester De Montfort Law School under the Faculty of Business and Law. He has been teaching at DMU since 2004, full-time from 2006, and holds a PhD from the university. His academic expertise spans sports law, criminology, and socio-legal studies, with a distinctive focus on equine sports and animal law.

His educational background includes an LLB (Hons) in Law from Nottingham Trent University, a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), an MA in Criminology and Social Policy from the Open University, and a PhD from De Montfort University (2017) on regulating equestrianism and horse racing. He brings over 22 years of teaching experience in law and criminology.

His research interests are centered on the legal status of horses as 'non-human athletes,' doping regulation in equestrian sports, animal sentience in law, and policing issues, especially in rural contexts. He has published extensively on the socio-legal implications of regulating animals in sports, with a strong critique of current frameworks and advocacy for reform, particularly in light of Brexit and animal welfare ethics.

The body of his recent publications reveals a consistent thematic focus on the intersection of law, animals, and sports governance. His work explores the ethical, regulatory, and procedural challenges in treating horses as athletes, drawing on jurisprudence, sports policy, and comparative legal analysis. Key recurring themes include strict liability, genetic cloning, anti-doping, and fair hearing rights in equine sports.

• Reviewer, Denning Law Journal
• Reviewer, Contemporary Issues In Law
• Reviewer, Policing: A Journal of Policy and Practice

Jonathan Merritt supervises PhD research, notably Mr. Liam Digan on the WADA Code and vulnerable athletes. He has led multiple consultative projects in criminal justice education, including designing foundation degrees in policing and criminal justice in collaboration with police forces and colleges. His grant-funded research includes the 'Wider police family' project (SLSA) and a Life Long Learning Research Project, as well as a Visiting Scholar position at Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto.

He is actively engaged in academic events, having co-organized conferences such as 'Horses, Society and the Law' at DMU (2017) and a follow-up at the University of Buckingham (2018), highlighting his leadership in building scholarly discourse on equine legal issues.