Meet the Kester Disability Rights Team
Here is the KDR Team who will work to win your case should we be able to take it on and if you want us to take it on!
Emily
Emily is our Disability Rights Administrator. She has a nephew with Autism and a daughter with Selective Mutism. She has been management in a customer facing role for the past 5 years and has put her skills to use fighting for the rights of disabled people. Emily enjoys Family days with her children and evening beach walks.
Jade
Jade provides support to the Director. After completing a bachelor’s degree in Law at Cardiff University, Jade found her passion in protecting the rights of disabled people. She joined the team in 2019 in order to pursue this mission. Jade was diagnosed with arthritis and fibromyalgia in 2014, providing her with an invaluable first-hand insight into the Personal Independence Payment (PIP) process and disability discrimination.
Josie
Josie is a Disability Rights Adviser. Josie's early career was devoted to supporting both children and adults with special needs. She excelled at school achieving A Levels and has a Level 3 Diploma in Child Care. She has three children including one daughter with Autism. Since she has been with Kester Disability Rights she has progressed to not only represent appellants at tribunal but is actively involved in various groups aimed at improving the efficiency of the tribunal system. This includes an Upper Tribunal User Group, a First-Tier Tribunal User Group, and is currently a member of the Administrative Justice Council Working Group working on tribunal backlogs across the SEND, IAC, and SSCS jurisdictions. She is a successful tribunal representative including running successful appeals to the Upper Tribunal establishing published case law including one case considered of sufficient importance for a neutral citation number: Keith Joyce v Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (PIP): [2026] UKUT 338 (AAC) - GOV.UK
Kester
Kester is the Director of the Company. It’s named after him because it was only him to start with! Kester’s background is mainly charity work. He is a former caseworker, manager, trainer and trustee for the Citizens Advice service. He also worked for three MPs. Before setting up KDR he was the social security Appeals and Disputes Manager at a national disability charity. Kester saw the problems in the charity advice sector and set up KDR as the solution. You can find out more about him on Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kester-dean-94394bb6
Zoe
Zoe is a Disability Rights Adviser. She is a deaf professional fluent in BSL and parent to a fabulous young man with Autism. Her areas of specialist knowledge are in both Autism and Deafness. Zoe's career has been in social services working in deaf adult services and becoming a manager for front-line services with a National Charity. But she gave up this well-paid work to do even more for disabled people, including working for KDR. She has also done lots of voluntary work including being a Critical Incident Adviser for Kent Police, advising on Deafness and Autism. Zoe also set up a deaf community with over 1200 members managing monthly meetings for over 10 years and was a Secondary School parent Governor. Zoe's interests involve creating unique stained glass sun-catchers and many art-related activities.