Colin taught Law and Criminology at Leeds University before becoming Director of the Greater London Council’s Disability Resource Team. His area of interest as Senior Research Fellow at City University, London was theories of disability. He was a member of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal (1994-2007), the Disability Rights Task Force (1997-1999) and the Disability Rights Commission (2000-2002).
In 2000, he was awarded a CBE for services to RNIB and to disabled people’s rights. He was appointed to the House of Lords in 2006 and chaired the Low Commissions on “Getting It Right In Social Welfare Law” (2014) and “Tackling the Advice Deficit” (2014).
He was Chair of the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) from 2000 to 2009 and a former President of the International Council for Education of People with Visual Impairment (ICEVI), of the World Blind Union (WBU) and of the UK Association of Accessible Formats (UKAAF). He was until August 2023 President of Visionary, an umbrella organisation of local associations for visually impaired people. He is an ambassador for Disability Rights UK and a patron of the Vision Foundation.
He is currently a Vice President of the Snowdon Trust, an organisation supporting students with disabilities, serving the charity since its inception in 1981.