Make Justice Work Ambassadors (N-Z)

Martin Narey – Chief Executive, Barnardo’s

Martin Narey was appointed chief executive of Barnardo’s in 2005. Prior to this he worked as director general of the Prison Service, chief executive of the National Offender Management Service and a Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. When running prisons he was widely recognised for his commitment to transforming and motivating prison staff, and for his determination to drive through improvements in the way in which prisoners were treated. He established the Decency Agenda in prisons, which led to significant improvements in prison conditions.

Baroness Julia Neuberger DBE – Rabbi, Social Reformer and Member of the House of Lords

Baroness Neuberger became a rabbi in 1977, and served the South London Liberal Synagogue for twelve years, before going to the King’s Fund Institute as a Visiting Fellow. She was at Harvard Medical School in 1991-1992, Chairman of Camden & Islington Community Health Services NHS Trust from 1993 until 1997 and then Chief Executive of the King’s Fund, an independent health charity until 2004. She was created a Life Peer in June 2004 (Liberal Democrat). Until recently she chaired the independent Commission on the Future of Volunteering, is President of Liberal Judaism, and in 2007 was appointed the Prime Minister’s Champion for Volunteering. She is the author of several books on Judaism, women, healthcare ethics and on caring for dying people.

Rev Nims Obunge – Chief Executive, The Peace Alliance

Rev Nims Obunge is the Pastor of Freedom’s Ark Church and also the Chief Executive of The Peace Alliance, a national crime reduction charity working on a local basis in partnership with faith, community and voluntary organisations, the police and local councils and other statutory agencies. He is a member of the Home Office Round Table on Gun Crime and a member of The Metropolitan Police Trident Independent Advisory Group. He serves on the London Crimestoppers Advisory Board and is also a member of the Metropolitan Police Association scrutiny panel on Stop & Search. Rev Obunge also chairs the Criminal Justice Board’s (CJB) Advisory Group. He is often consulted by senior Home Office and Scotland Yard officials on issues related to ethnicity, diversity, young people and crime. Rev Obunge continues working closely with families and victims of gun and other violent crime, as well as with young people at risk of offending, to help alleviate the distress and devastating effects of fatal crime.

Rob Owen – Chief Executive, St Giles Trust

Rob Owen is Chief Executive of St Giles Trust, a multi award winning mid-sized charity that helps break the cycle of re-offending. The cornerstone of St Giles services is their innovative use of trained ex-offenders who use their first hand experiences to provide services to others. Key services for St Giles revolve around housing and employment, providing intensive support to people leaving prison, work with gang members and work with families and children. Previously Rob was an Investment Banker working in London, New York and Tokyo. He has led multiple arctic and high altitude expeditions raising money for charity and is a published author on the subject of sports sponsorship. He is currently on the newly created Council on Social Action, chaired by Gordon Brown and is a board member of FutureBuilders England.

Sarah Payne - Chief Executive, YWCA

Sarah Payne is the Chief Executive of YWCA England & Wales, which works with vulnerable young women and girls in some of our most disadvantaged communities to help them overcome the barriers and prejudice they face so that they can fulfil their potential. Her career before YWCA had been wholly in the criminal justice system – 24 years in the prison service where she was a Governor, an Area Manager and held several other senior posts, a period in the Home Office working on policing policy, and then almost four years as one of the first ten regional commissioners in the new National Offender Management Service.  Throughout her time in the prison service she was a passionate advocate of the decency agenda and of the need to do everything possible to help individuals turn their lives around. Sarah chairs the National Offender Management Service/Ministry of Justice jointly sponsored Reducing Re-offending Third Sector Advisory Group.

Andrew Phillips OBE – Former Solicitor

Andrew Phillips is a specialist in charity law. He qualified as a solicitor in 1964 and in 1970 founded Bates, Wells & Braithwaite in London, where he remains a consultant. In 1997 he was awarded an OBE for establishing the Citizenship Foundation. He also Co-Founded the Legal Action Group and the Solicitors Pro Bono Group (LawWorks). He was made a Liberal Democrat life peer in 1998 but took leave of absence in 2006 having previously spoken on Home Office, legal services and community cohesion matters. A freelance author, he was a member of the Scott Trust (owners of the Guardian and Observer) for 10 years, a presenter of LWT’s London Programme in the early 1980s, and legal adviser (‘Legal Eagle’) on BBC Radio 2′s Jimmy Young Show from 1976 to 2002.

Trevor Philpott OBE – Co-Founder and Director, Life Change UK

Trevor Philpott is a Co-Founder and Director of Life Change UK, a not-for-profit company providing unique and innovative training in managing challenging behaviour. Prior to this Trevor established C-FAR, a charity that helped young adult persistent male offenders stop committing crime. The project included intensive 12 week residential training courses and ongoing mentor support in the community. Despite reducing re-offending by 40 per cent, due to difficulties in securing on-going financial support, in 2005 C-FAR went into voluntary liquidation.  Trevor is a former Royal Marine Officer. During his 34 year career he gained extensive experience in leadership, management and training.  As the Officer Commanding Commando Training Wing, he was once responsible for Royal Marine recruit training, following which he was appointed an OBE.  He is a Fellow of the RSA.

Sir Charles Pollard QPM – Former Chief Constable, Thames Valley Police

Sir Charles Pollard served as Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police from 1991 to 2002. As Chief Constable, his vision of policing went far beyond the crudely retributive justice and zero tolerance policies favoured in the 1980s. Instead, he developed the policy and practice of restorative justice which aims to foster individual responsibility by requiring young offenders to acknowledge the consequences of their actions, and to make reparation both to their victims and to the community. Under his leadership, Thames Valley Police pioneered the restorative justice model and he also promoted restorative justice through his membership of the Youth Justice Board and the Justice Research Consortium. He has also collaborated with leading criminologists in Australia and North America, and is a Reader in Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. In 2001 he was knighted in recognition of his services to policing and criminal policy. He was formally Acting Chairman of the Youth Justice Board, and is now Chairman of Restorative Solutions Community Interest Company, a not-for-profit organisation helping the police, probation, prisons and others to develop and use restorative justice.

Alex Proud – Founder, Proud Galleries

Alex Proud is the brains behind legendary London venue and exhibition spaces – Proud Galleries. Alex is considered an expert commentator on photographic and media issues, having being invited to sit on various judging panels including the Nikon Press Awards, Observer Hodge Awards and the CoolBrands Council. Alex has also been seen adjudicating on the final of Channel 4′s Picture This photography competition. He retains strong connections with Camden outside of the gallery with his role as Vice Chair of Camden Town Unlimited.

Dr Katherine Rake – Director, Fawcett Society

Dr Katherine Rake is Director of the Fawcett Society and one of the UK’s leading specialists in gender and social policy. Under her leadership, Fawcett runs passionate, informed campaigns for better treatment of women victims and defendants in the criminal justice system. Katherine has advised the Prime Minister’s Policy Unit, HM Treasury and other Government departments on gender and social policy. She was previously Lecturer in Social Policy at the LSE and secondee to the Women’s Unit, Cabinet Office. In 2008, Katherine was awarded an OBE for services to equal opportunities.

Lord David Ramsbotham GCB CBE – Former Chief Inspector of Prisons

David Ramsbotham served as Her Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales from 1995 to 2001. He is the Vice-Chair of the All Party Penal Affairs Group and the author of Prisongate: The Shocking State of Britain’s Prisons and the Need for Visionary Change. In addition he is the Honorary President of the Koestler Awards scheme, President of UNLOCK (the National Association of Ex-Offenders) and an Ambassador for the Prison Advice and Care Trust (PACT). David is a former General of the British Army and has served in Germany, Kenya, Hong Kong, Borneo, Northern Ireland and Gibraltar. He was awarded a life peerage in 2005, and now sits on the cross benches of the House of Lords.

Tim Robertson – Chief Executive, The Koestler Trust

Tim Robertson became Chief Executive of the Koestler Trust in 2006. The Koestler Awards for arts by offenders now attract over 5,000 entries a year, and the annual Koestler Exhibition receives 10,000 visitors at such venues as the Institute of Contemporary Arts and the Royal Festival Hall. Previously, Tim worked for 14 years as a social worker and manager for children and young people in the London Borough of Camden. He set up the borough’s Youth Offending Team, social care team for disabled children, and five Sure Start programmes which were awarded Beacon Status by the Government. He is a Director of Magma poetry magazine and an advisor to Create Arts.

Professor Paul Rock – Criminologist and sociologist

Paul Rock FBA FRSA is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and Visiting Professor of Criminology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a former Director of the Mannheim Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice and the author of ten books on criminology, the sociology of deviance and policy-making for victims of crime in Canada and England and Wales. His most recent book, published in 2004, is Constructing Victims’ Rights.

Gordon Roddick – Social activist and social entrepreneur

Co-founder of The Body Shop and The Big Issue, Gordon Roddick continues to support the fight for social and environmental justice by support for groups such as Reprieve and Caged Prisoners.

Professor Mick Ryan – Criminologist

Mick Ryan is Professor Emeritus of Penal Politics at the University of Greenwich, London. Apart from writing extensively on the way penal policy is made in the United Kingdom, he has been an active member of the penal lobby for many years. He has also lectured on a wide range penal issues, such as prison privatisation, in North America, Europe and Australia, where he was visiting fellow at the University of New South Wales. He was formerly Chair of INQUEST, the group which monitors deaths in state custody.

John Samuels QC – Chairman, Prisoners’ Education Trust

John Samuels is Chairman of Prisoners’ Education Trust; and is a Trustee of the Howard League and the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. He formerly chaired the Criminal Committee of the Council of Circuit Judges; represents Crown Court sentencers on the National Sentencer Probation Forum; and is the member for England & Wales on the Board of the International Association of Drug Treatment Courts.

Dr David Scott – Criminologist

Dr David Scott works at the Centre for Criminology and Criminal justice, University of Central Lancashire. He is a member of INQUEST and the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control. David is on the editorial board of Criminal Justice Matters and has published widely on the topics of ‘crime’, prisons and punishment. Recent and forthcoming book titles include Expanding the Criminological Imagination (2007), The Sage Course Companion: Penology (2008), Controversial Issues in Prisons (2009) and Punishment and Crime (forthcoming).

James Scudamore – Novelist

James Scudamore is a novelist and short story writer. His first novel, The Amnesia Clinic, won the 2007 Somerset Maugham Award and was shortlisted for the Costa First Novel Award and the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize. His second, Heliopolis, was published to critical acclaim in January 2009. His short fiction has featured in Time Out, Prospect Magazine and on BBC Radio 3, and he has also written for Intelligent Life and Conde Nast Traveller.

Fay Selvan – Chief Executive Officer, The Big Life Group

Fay Selvan is the Chief Executive Officer of The Big Life Group, which she established in 2002. The Big Life Group is the first group of social businesses and charities in the country and has a turnover of circa £6m.  It offers a wide range of opportunities to people who have the least, working in the fields of primary health care, self help, childcare, family support, employment and training. Fay also established Diverse Resources in 1991 and led its development from an unincorporated association with a turnover of just £17k, to a group of companies and charities with a turnover of £2m by 2000.  She has been Executive Sponsor for the Manchester, Salford and Trafford Health Action Zone; Chair of Trafford North Primary Care Trust (TNPCT); and is currently Chair of Trafford Healthcare Trust (THT) where she is working to ensure quality services are offered in local hospitals.  Trafford is currently working on an innovative model of delivery integrated care which will transform how healthcare is delivered.

Uanu Seshmi MBE – Director, The From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation

Uanu Seshmi is the Director of The From Boyhood to Manhood Foundation, an innovative and hugely successful south London based programme that helps boys and young men excluded from mainstream education turn their lives around and achieve their full potential. Uanu is also behind “Calling the Shots”, London’s anti gun-crime education and resource programme, and is a member of the REACH project set up by the Department for Communities and Local Government. A regular contributor to a media on a wide range of youth issues, Uanu was recently awarded an MBE and named as one of the 1000 Most Influential People in London by The Evening Standard.

Professor Lawrence Sherman – Criminologist

Lawrence Sherman was elected Wolfson Professor of Criminology of the University of Cambridge in 2006. As Greenfield Professor of Human Relations at the University of Pennsylvania from 1999-2007, he was appointed the first Director of the University’s Jerry Lee Center of Criminology and first Chair of its Department of Criminology. Prior to that, he was a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland and an associate professor in the University at Albany’s School of Criminal Justice. His research interests are in the fields of crime prevention, evidence-based policy, restorative justice, police practices and experimental criminology. Professor Sherman is the author, co-author or editor of 9 books and over 100 book chapters and journal articles. In recognition of his work, he has received the American Society of Criminology’s Sutherland Award, the Academy of Experimental Criminology’s McCord Award, the American Sociological Association’s Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Crime, Law and Deviance, and the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences’ Bruce Smith Jr. Award. He is also the founding co-chair of the International Jury for the Stockholm Prize in Criminology.

Suzanne Sibillin – Director, Women in Prison

Suzanne Sibillin is the Director of Women in Prison, a voluntary sector organisation that has over 25 years experience of campaigning for and offering services to female offenders and ex-offenders. Prior to this she worked as a senior manager in a number of women’s voluntary sector organisations, including setting up and managing the Haven Sexual Assualt Referral Centre (Whitechapel) in 2004. Suzanne is a trained counsellor and social worker who has over 15 years experience of working with a range of client groups (including young women abused through prostitution, survivors of domestic violence and vulnerable/’at risk’ children and young people) in the UK, Italy and Australia.

Tim Smit CBE – Co-Founder and Chief Executive, The Eden Project

Tim Smit CBE is known the world over as Co-Founder and Chief Executive of the award winning Eden Project. Eden began as a dream in 1995 and opened its doors just five years later – greeted by much of the press as ‘the eighth wonder of the world.’ Since then more than nine million visitors have come to enjoy a once sterile pit turned into a cradle of life. It is both a showcase for world-class horticulture and a startling architectural symbol of human endeavour. Eden has also changed many people’s perception of the application of science, by communicating scientific concepts through art and storytelling. Beyond that, it lives up to its mission to take a pivotal role in local regeneration, demonstrating once and for all that sustainability is not about sandals and nut cutlets; it is about good business practice and the citizenship values of the future. Tim was awarded an Honorary CBE in the New Years Honours List in 2002 and was voted ‘Great Briton of 2007′ in the Environment category of the Morgan Stanley Great Britons Awards.

Basia Spalek – Criminologist

Basia Spalek is a criminologist within the Institute of Applied Social Studies at the University of Birmingham. Basia has written extensively about minority communities in relation to crime, criminal justice and victimisation and books include Crime Victims: theory, policy & practice (2006), Ethnicity and Crime: a reader (2008) and Communities, Identities and Crime (2008). She acts as an advisor to the National Offender Management Service and to a project being run by RUSI. Basia recently led an AHRC/ESRC research project examining engagement and partnership between Muslim communities and police within a counter-terrorism context and is about to begin another AHRC/ESRC funded project exploring partnership questions within a counter-terrorism context in relation to Muslim youth.

Peter Stanford – Writer, journalist and broadcaster

Peter Stanford is a writer, journalist and broadcaster. His books include biographies of the Labour Cabinet minister, Lord Longford; the Poet Laureate, C Day-Lewis; Bronwen Astor; and Cardinal Basil Hume. A former Editor of the Catholic Herald (1988-1992), he writes for papers including The Independent on Sunday, Observer, Daily Telegraph and the Daily Mail. He presents television and radio documentaries including the award-winning Channel 4 series, Catholics and Sex, BBC 1′s The She Pope, Channel 5′s The Mission and has appeared as a panelist on the BBC’s The Moral Maze. In addition to all this he is the Director of the Longford Trust for penal reform.

Professor Kevin Stenson – Criminologist

Professor Stenson is an Honorary Professor at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, University of Kent. He was previously Professor of Criminology at Buckinghamshire New University and then Middlesex University, London. His empirical research has covered a broad range of themes, from the link between crime and poverty to the social control of young people on the streets, to police stop and search. His theoretical work has been mainly concerned with changes in the politics of crime control and community safety. He has long been an active member of the British Society of Criminology, serving as chair of the southern regional branch and on the national executive committee. He is a joint author of the UK, QAA national benchmarks in criminology and is on the editorial boards of Critical Criminology journal and Criminal Justice Matters.

Peter Tatchell – Human Rights Campaigner

Peter Tatchell has campaigned for human rights for over 40 years. He is currently the Green Party’s human rights spokesperson and its parliamentary candidate for Oxford East. In 1990, he co-founded the LGBT direct action group OutRage! and his efforts helped repeal homophobic discrimination in law. He is involved in a wide variety of human rights issues, within the UK and internationally; twice attempting a citizen’s arrest of the Zimbabwean dictator, Robert Mugabe. He is a frequent commentator on human rights issues in print and through the broadcast media, authoring thousands of articles and six books. In 2006, New Statesman readers voted him sixth on their list of “Heroes of our time”.

Henry Tinsley – Former Chair, Green & Blacks Chocolate

Henry Tinsley is former Chair of Green & Blacks Chocolate. He has been an investor and board member of many businesses, mostly in the food industry. A political activist since he was 18, Henry now spends much of his time engaged in charitable and campaigning activities. He is a Trustee of the Carter Centre UK, Technoserve Europe & Article 1.

Polly Toynbee – Writer and social commentator

Polly Toynbee is a leading social commentator and a columnist on the Guardian. She was formerly BBC Social Affairs Editor, Columnist and Associate Editor of the Independent, Co-Editor of the Washington Monthly and a reporter and feature writer for the Observer. She has written several books, Hard Work: Life in Low-pay Britain (2003), Lost Children: Story of Adopted Children Searching for Their Mothers (1985) and is the co-author of Better or Worse? Has Labour Delivered? (2005) with David Walker. She was recently voted ‘the most influential’ commentator in the UK in a poll from Editorial Intelligence.

Bob Turney – Former prisoner and probation officer

A former prisoner and probation officer, Bob Turney, has had a wide ranging experience of the criminal justice system. He spent 18 years of his early life drifting in and out of prison but against the odds managed to turn his life around and used his experience to help others suffering from life controlling addictions. He attended the University of Reading where he gained an Honours degree in Forensic Social Work, before spending many years as a Probation Officer. He has also been an adviser and speech writer for a member of the House of Lords, and an adviser on penal reform to the government of Tony Blair. In addition to all this he has written five ‘self-help’ books – published by Waterside Press – and has just embarked on his first novel.

Iqbal Wahhab – Restaurateur and chair of the Ethnic Minority Advisory Group

Iqbal Wahhab was born in Bangladesh and came to Britain at the age of eight months. A graduate of the London School of Economics, he has launched a number of successful business ventures, including the multi award winning Cinnamon Club in 2001, and Roast, based in Borough Market, in 2005. Iqbal now works closely with The Prince’s Trust, taking children from under-privileged schools in south east London and spending half days with them at Roast and taking them on food education programmes around Borough Market. He is also the chair of the government’s Ethnic Minority Advisory Group, which discusses ways to reduce ethnic minority unemployment levels, and sits on the Task Force with five government ministers to formulate policies to this end.

Ashley Walters – Actor and musician

 

Ashley Walters is one of the UK’s most exciting up-and-coming talents. He rose to fame as Asher D in the UK garage collective So Solid Crew and has since made the transition to acting starring in Sugarhouse Lane, Stormbreaker, Life and Lyrics and the critically acclaimed, Bullet Boy, for which he won the British Independent Film award for Best Newcomer. Amidst this busy acting schedule he still finds time to run his own production company, AD82 Productions, specialising in talent in the British music and film industries, and act as a Patron for the Damilola Taylor Trust.

Claudia Webbe – Leading campaignerClaudia Webbe is Chair of Operation Trident, an anti-gun crime initiative that she founded with others in 1998 to help bring an end to a spate of shootings and murders disproportionately affecting London’s black communities. She is also a board member of London Crimestoppers and a member of the Home Secretary’s round table on guns, gangs and knives. Claudia has spent a lifetime campaigning against racism and injustice and is Chair of Positive Action Training, which provides a pathway to employment for black and minority ethnic communities, and was an advisor to the former Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, with specific responsibilities for cultural strategy and race equality. Claudia is a Trustee of the Children’s Society campaigning for a better childhood for children and she is also a Trustee of National Energy Action (NEA) tackling fuel poverty. Claudia frequently appears in the media commenting on a range of issues including racism, equality, gun crime and gang violence and the negative effects of society on children and young people.

Dr Howard Williamson CBE – Academic, author and youth worker

Dr Howard Williamson is Professor of European Youth Policy at the University of Glamorgan and Visiting Professor at the University of Hertfordshire. A practising youth worker for many years, he has worked on a range of ‘youth issues’ such as learning, justice, substance misuse, exclusion and citizenship at European and national levels. He was a member of the Youth Justice Board between 2001 and 2008 and currently co-ordinates the Council of Europe’s international reviews of national youth policies. He has published extensively – one of his more recent books is The Milltown Boys Revisited (Berg 2004), a follow-up study of a group of men who were young offenders in the 1970s. In addition to this he is a Trustee of the Duke of Edinburgh Award and was appointed CBE in 2002 for services to young people.

Simon Woodroffe OBE – Entrepreneur and Founder of YO Sushi and YOTEL

Simon left school at the age of 16 and spent 30 years in the entertainment business. His production companies in London and Los Angeles designed and staged concerts for many artists during the 70′s and 80′s, including The Moody Blues, Madness, Rod Stewart, Stevie Wonder, George Michael and the world’s most famous concert in history: Live Aid in 1985. In 1997, Simon founded YO! Sushi, the hugely successful conveyor belt sushi bar which became an overnight phenomenon. Today Simon continues to develop various YO! Brands including YOTEL, YO! Zone, and YO! Foundation, which he set up to support various charitable causes that are important to him. In addition to all this he was one of the original panellists on the BBC 2 hit programme Dragon’s Den and has developed a strong reputation on the UK and international public speaking circuit. He was awarded an OBE in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2006.

Neil Wragg MBE – Chief Executive, Youth at Risk

Neil Wragg is Chief Executive of Youth at Risk, a ground-breaking charity dedicated to making a lasting change to the lives of alienated and vulnerable young people in danger of falling into a life of crime. He is also a member of the Army Training Regiment Bassingbourn’s Independent Advisory Panel. Prior to joining Youth at Risk, Neil served in the military and worked extensively in the public and voluntary sector. He was a member of the Government’s Crime Reduction Task Force from 2000-01 and is currently a member of its Social Work Taskforce. He was awarded an MBE for his services to young people in the Queen’s 2008 Birthday Honours.

Dr Benjamin Zephaniah – Poet, novelist and playwright

Poet, novelist and playwright, Benjamin Zephaniah is probably one of the most high-profile international authors writing today, with an enormous breadth of appeal, equally popular with both adults and children.