Melanie Ball, BA (Hons), MBIVR - Managing Director

Melanie was educated at Victoria College, Belfast and went on to obtain a BA (Hons) degree in Classics at Queen's University.  Thereafter she trained as a stenographer at the College of Business Studies.  She has been a Member of the British Institute of Verbatim Reporters for over twenty-nine years.

For the past thirty-two years she has been working as a freelance stenographer in civil and criminal hearings all over the world, specialising for the last twenty-three years in real-time reporting, having obtained LiveNote Real-time Accreditation in 1996.  She also has extensive experience in US deposition work.

Notable jobs in her career to date include: 

Guildford Four/Maguire Seven Public Inquiry, Yugoslavia War Crimes Tribunal in The Hague, New Cross Fire Second Inquest, R v Sawoniuk (the first Nazi war crimes trial in the UK), Thyssen v Thyssen civil case for two years in Bermuda, Deep Cut Barracks Inquest, first stenographer to sit in the N. Ireland Court of Appeal on a case where a smoker was suing Gallaghers tobacco company, depositions of Sharon Osbourne and Michael Winner, interviews of Tony Blair, Edward Heath, Paddy Ashdown, end-of-match interviews at Wimbledon, Billy Wright Public Inquiry, Robert Hamill Public Inquiry, Iraq Inquiry, R v Mouncher et al in Swansea Crown Court (the UK's largest police corruption trial), Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry in N. Ireland which ended in July 2016 after two and a half years of hearings, Infected Blood Inquiry in 2019.

Kay Hendrick - Senior Reporter

After leaving St Paul's High School in Bessbrook Kay attended the College of Business Studies in Belfast where she trained as a stenographer.  Since she graduated she has worked for ten years in The Central Criminal Court (Old Bailey) in London, followed by four years at the Royal Courts of Justice.  

Kay has a wealth of experience over the past twenty-seven years working all over the world in civil and criminal matters, specialising in US depositions.  She is also a qualified real-time reporter.

Some well-known cases she has worked on include:

Rose West murder trial, Maxwell brothers civil trial.

Working together as a team, Melanie (as writer) and Kay (in the role of scopist/proofreader) can offer a speedy, same-day transcription service.