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Our Trustees

Honorary positions

  • The Rt Hon Lord Hurd of Westwell CH, CBE President
  • The Rt Hon Lord Woolf of Barnes CH Honorary President
    Lord Woolf was called to the Bar in 1955 and from 1973–74 was junior counsel, Inland Revenue. During this time he represented the Revenue in the majority of their leading cases before the High Court..., Court of Appeal and the House of Lords. In 1974 Lord Woolf was appointed first Treasury Counsel (Common Law) which he held for five years. In 1979 he was appointed to the Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court of Justice, was made Lord Justice of Appeal in 1986, and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary in 1992. Between 1996 and 2000 he was Master of the Rolls. He was appointed Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales in 2000–2005 and retired in September 2005. He was a non-permanent judge of the Court of Final Appeal of Hong Kong in 2003 to 2012 and was awarded the Gold Bauhinia Star in recognition of his services. He was the first President of the Qatar Financial Centre Civil and Commercial Court, serving from 2006 to 2012 and Chair of the Prison Reform Trust from 2011 to 2016. In addition Lord Woolf has served as Chairman of Judges for the FIRST Responsible Capitalism Awards. Lord Woolf has served on a number of House of Lords Committees and is a current member of the Joint Committee on Human Rights. He has been Patron of the Woolf Institute, which promotes inter-faith understanding, since 1998. He holds honorary degrees from 22 universities and in 2015 he was awarded a Companion of Honour by Her Majesty the Queen.

Trustees

  • James Timpson OBE Chair
    James is Chief Executive of the family retail business since 2003, growing the Manchester based business from 180 to 1500 shops that trade under the Timpson, Snappy Snaps and Max Spielmann brands. 10%... of their colleagues were recruited direct from prison, making Timpson the largest employer of ex-offenders in the UK. The Timpson Foundation’s work with offenders has led to numerous Academies being set up within prisons to train offenders pre-release. James is Founding Chair of the Employers Forum for Reducing Reoffending and supported the Coates Review into prison education reform, as well as working with employers, schools and officials to further the employment of offenders. He was Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Innovation at Newcastle University Business School, and is a Manchester City fan.
  • Neil Yazdani Treasurer
    Neil is a qualified Chartered Accountant (ACA), with over 20 years experience in Finance. Neil started his career at Arthur Andersen and subsequently Deloitte LLP. In 2019, he joined Diploma PLC, a FT...SE100 distributor and he is currently Finance Director of the Controls Sector, overseeing businesses operating in the UK, continental Europe and North America. Outside of work he enjoys playing sport and he is a supporter of Bradford City.
  • Maqsood Ahmed OBE Trustee
    Maqsood Ahmed was appointed as Adviser to the Home Office in the Faith Communities Unit in 2003, which transferred to the Communities and Local Government in 2006 and is now called the Preventing Extr...emism Division. He was awarded an OBE for his groundbreaking work as the first Muslim Advisor to HM Prison Service. His background lies in working on anti-poverty, inter-faith and racial equality in a career which includes working in the Leicester Law Centre and the Watford Borough Council for 15 years. Other appointments include time spent as a Trustee and founding member of Drug, Alcohol Awareness Project in Ealing West London (DAAP) and Executor and founding member of the Leicester Central Mosque and Islamic Centre. He has been a Fellow of the Faith and Civil Society of Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge (2006–09) and is currently a Fellow of the University of London, Goldsmiths’ College. He has also been instrumental in holding the first ever Imams Rabbis conference in 2006 in London. This was followed in Manchester with Muslim/Jewish women dialogue event. He is also one of the Patrons of Abraham Fund UK, a Charity which works to increase Palestine/Jewish engagement. He was awarded The Muslim News Al-Barooni Award for Excellence in 2008 for his work with the Muslim Community and his Inter-faith work in the UK and internationally. He was a Senior Advisor to the Department of Communities and Local Government; an Advisor at the UK Cross Government Unit of Research Information and Communication Unit (RICU) which sits within the Home Office. He is one of the Founding Trustee of 9/11 London Project, and educational work to mark 10 years’ anniversary of the 9/11 (2005–10).
  • Lord Carter of Haslemere Trustee
  • Shadae Cazeau Trustee
    Shadae Cazeau is a qualified but non-practicing barrister, equality specialist and currently, Head of Equalities and Access to Justice at the Bar Standards Board. Shadae formerly worked at the Indepen...dent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) where she held a variety of roles including leading work on discrimination. As Head of Policy for EQUAL National Independent Advisory Group, born out of the Young Review, Shadae advocated for policy reform and reductions in racial disparities across the criminal justice system with a specific focus on prisons. As part of her role at EQUAL, Shadae was a member of Her Majesty’s Prisons and Probation Service (HMPPS) External Advice and Scrutiny Panel (EASP) and played a key role in ensuring that race remained at the forefront of HMPPS policy reform. Shadae is also a trustee for the Alliance for Youth Justice (AYJ).
  • Mifta Choudhury Trustee
    Mifta Choudhury is the CEO and Founder of Youth Ink at the Heart of the Community, a service user led organisation which he established in 2016. In 2018 Youth Ink was the recipient of the 2018–19 Bu...tler Trust Award for its work in the youth justice system. Mifta’s journey with the criminal justice system began at the age of 13 and he has served more the 12 years in custody.
  • Professor Ben Crewe Trustee
    Professor Ben Crewe has been at the Institute of Criminology since 2001, initially as a Nuffield Foundation New Career Development Fellow, and subsequently as a Senior Research Associate. He is curren...tly Deputy Director of the Prisons Research Centre and Director of the MSt Penology Programme. From October 2015, he will hold a University Readership in Penology. Ben is on the editorial board of the British Journal of Criminology, Palgrave Communications and the Prison Service Journal. He is an International Associate Board member of Punishment and Society, and is one of the series editors of Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology (with Yvonne Jewkes and Thomas Ugelvik). Current research projects include an ESRC-funded study of prisoners serving very long sentences from an early age (with Susie Hulley and Serena Wright); a NOMS-funded study of the role of prison governors; and from September 2015 a five-year, €2 million research project titled ‘Penal policymaking and the prisoner experience: a comparative analysis’, which will involve extensive fieldwork in England & Wales and one of the Nordic countries.
  • The Rt Hon Lord Garnier KC Trustee
    Lord Edward Garnier KC was the Conservative MP for Harborough April 1992–June 2017. Called to the Bar 1976; Northern Ireland Bar 2010; Queen’s Counsel: 1995, Crown Court Recorder: 1998–2015; Ben...cher of the Middle Temple: 2001; Bencher Northern Ireland Inn of Court: 2010. He practises as a defamation and media law, international human rights law and corporate crime specialist from 1 Brick Court, Temple, and is a consultant to DLA Piper LLP. Visiting Parliamentary Fellow, St Antony’s College, Oxford: 1996–97. Member of the House of Commons Home Affairs Select Committee: 1992–1994. Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, to the Attorney General and Solicitor General, and to the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster: 1994–97.Shadow Minister, Lord Chancellor’s Department: 1997–99; Shadow Attorney General: 1999–2001; Shadow Home Affairs Minister: 2005–07; Shadow Justice Minister: 2007–09; Shadow Attorney General: 2009–10. HM Solicitor General: 2010–12. Member of the Lords and Commons Joint Committee on Human Rights 2013–15. Knighted 2012. Privy Council 2015. Life Peer 2018.
  • The Rt Hon David Gauke Trustee
    David Gauke was MP for South West Hertfordshire from 2005 until 2019 and served as a Treasury Minister (2010 to 2017) and Secretary of State for Work and Pensions (2017 to 2018). In January 2018, he w...as appointed Secretary of State for Justice and Lord Chancellor. As Justice Secretary, he introduced a new Education & Employment Strategy, a Female Offenders Strategy and sought to review sentencing policy with the intention of reducing the number of offenders given short custodial sentences. David resigned from Government in July 2019 and is now Head of Public Policy at Macfarlanes LLP and Senior Policy Adviser at Instinctif Partners.
  • Julia Killick CBE Trustee
    Julia started her career in London Local Authority Housing working for Hillingdon, Harrow and Brent before joining the Prison Service in 1998. Working at HMP Highdown, HMP Holloway and YOI Feltham as ...Head of Prisoner Care, Julia took charge of the Immigration Removal Centre Haslar, before moving to become Governor at HMP Guys Marsh in Dorset. In 2010 Julia returned to Holloway as Governor and with her team of staff cared for 590 women, raising standards and resettlement opportunities whilst reducing self harm , as recognised by consecutive HMIP inspections. Julia retired in December 2015 and was awarded CBE for services to prisons in 2016. She now volunteers as trustee for a local Housing Association, as well as driving the community bus. Her interest in prisoner resettlement continues as a trustee of Liberty Kitchen and Step Together volunteering. Julia is a lay member of Central London Employment Tribunal.
  • Nigel Newcomen CBE Trustee
    Nigel Newcomen is the former Prisons and Probation Ombudsman (PPO) for England and Wales 2011-17, and previously Deputy Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales 2003-2011. He has degrees from ...the universities of Kent, Surrey and London. He spent his early career in university research and teaching, followed by 10 years in the Probation Service working with offenders and then leading a research and information unit in London. He joined the Civil Service in 1991 and spent 12 years in the Home Office, mainly in Prison Service headquarters, where he led numerous prison policy and casework areas including standards, diversity, lifers, parole, drugs and offending behaviour programmes. He joined the Inspectorate of Prisons in 2003 as Deputy Chief Inspector and oversaw the development of its programming and methodology, including expansion into immigration, police and military detention. As PPO, he independently investigated all deaths in custody and provided the final stage of the prisoner complaint process. His tenure as PPO saw the introduction of a broad agenda of thematic publications distilling learning from across individual investigations. He has undertaken international work on prisons, including chairing a Council of Europe Committee on Life Sentence Prisoners and supporting European funded work to create complaint mechanisms in Chinese pre-trial detention facilities. He was awarded a CBE in 2011 and the Perrie Award in 2018.
  • Rebecca Page Trustee
    Rebecca Page has been at Prisoners’ Education Trust since 2019, heading and implementing new delivery models to become a more progressive digital organisation, including smart data systems and proce...sses, designed to develop ways to maximise efficiency and impact. As Regional Manager at User Voice 2013-2019, service user involvement included projects in prisons, probation and secure units, this progressed to a senior Operations role to lead nationally on quality assurance and due diligence to inform strategy. With proven people management and frontline engagement skills, she also has a long standing commercial background within Banking and Finance. Her passion for development and operational work within charities in the justice sector is a direct result of personal lived experience as a former prisoner. Having been a steering group member of HM Courts & Tribunals Services to inform the revision of defendant’s judiciary journeys, her determination and focus to increasing fundamental support and legitimate delivery to people at the sharp end helps charities to continue to fill the stark gap of service delivery in the justice system.
  • Dale Simon CBE Trustee
    Dale is a qualified barrister (currently non-practising) and an equality and diversity specialist who has worked in the criminal justice system for over 30 years. She began her career as a criminal de...fence barrister in 1986 and then moved into the public sector in 1992 where she held a variety of frontline, operational and strategic roles; specialising in equality and diversity and professional standards including the Head of the Office of Judicial Complaints and the Director of Public Accountability and Inclusion for the Crown Prosecution Service. Dale was awarded a CBE for services to equality and diversity 2013. In 2014 Dale commenced a portfolio career and established her own management consultancy specialising in organisational “health checks” and workplace mediation. Past roles include advocate consultant for Phase II of the Young Review –tackling the disproportionately negative outcomes for young Black Asian and Muslim men in the Criminal Justice System and Non-executive director at the Parole Board. Her current roles include being a member of the House of Commons Independent Expert Panel, with responsibility for handling allegations of serious misconduct by MP’s and the National Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel, for whom she lead a national review of the safeguarding system’s response to adolescents at risk of criminal exploitation.
  • Junior Smart OBE Trustee
    Junior Smart was employed by St Giles Trust in 2006 where he set up the SOS Project as an ex-offender led gangs intervention project offering intensive, tailored one-to-one support for young people ca...ught up in the negative vortex of gangs and weapons crime. Initially started as a small south London pilot, SOS has grown over the years to become London’s largest ex-offender gangs project; with a footprint across the capital helping over 600 young people annually to break free from gang, gun and knife crime and lead positive, productive lives in the community. Junior and his team have won multiple awards including The Charity Awards 2014, The Third Sector Excellence Awards 2011, the Centre for Social Justice Awards 2010 and The South London Press Awards 2008 to name a few. Junior was listed in the Evening Standard’s list of 1000 Influential Londoners in 2014 and 2015 in recognition of his campaigning work around the issue of London’s gang problem. Junior holds a first class BA Hons in Youth Work and a distinction in his MA in Youth Crime and Justice. He also holds numerous other qualifications in areas including conflict resolution, youth work, gangs work and substance misuse and is an accredited PTTLS trainer.
  • Louise Spencer Trustee

Contacting Trustees

If you wish to contact the PRT board of trustees please contact Amy Brownrigg.

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