Richard Price - Chairman Expand Richard Price began his career as a Probation Officer in Inner London and then worked for an advisory body to government on the Personal Social Services before being appointed Deputy Director of the International Year of the Child. He then moved into the private sector and, having worked for a government backed IT company, founded the public relations and marketing consultancy The EuroPR Group where he was Managing Director for 25 years. During that time he was also a Board Director of The Public Relations Consultants Association and Chairman of its International Committee.He is a former Chairman of The Oxford and Cambridge Club and the Merton Chamber of Commerce and is a trustee of the English choral group, The Sixteen, and a trustee of the Merton Homelessness Project.
Fiona Shaw - Treasurer Expand A qualified accountant (FCCA), Fiona has spent most of her working life in the voluntary sector, including 15 years at Friends of the Earth where she was Head of Finance and Administration, managing the Finance, Supporter Services and Facilities teams. Fiona then moved to be Head of Finance at a new international development NGO, Water and Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP). As well as her finance expertise, she also has a breadth of experience in a variety of fundraising methods. Fiona has been a trustee of Prisoners Abroad since March 2002.
Christine Ashley Expand Chrissie used our services when her son was in prison in 2008 in Spain. Chrissie works as an Office Manager for Goldsmiths College. She has experience of event management, HR, training and compliance and is a trained Workplace Mediator amongst other skills. In her spare time she is currently Chair of Trustees for the Archway Project, a charity that seeks to enrich the lives of young people living in London, which is taking up a fair amount of her time. Chrissie has spoken at several Prisoners Abroad events and is passionate about our work and the positive impact it makes to people’s lives.
Mark Atkinson Expand Mark Atkinson is Chief Executive of the disability charity Scope which exists to drive change across society so disabled people have the same opportunities as everyone else. Prior to Scope, Mark spent almost four years with Ambitious about Autism, the national charity for children and young people with autism, supporting the development of new services and advocacy on autism education. He is currently a member of the British Bankers’ Association Consumer Panel which exists to advise the UK’s retail banking sector on consumer issues. Mark has worked in senior communications, policy and strategy roles for a number of leading national charities and not-for-profit organisations.
Mary Catterall Expand Mary has been a supporter of Prisoners Abroad since 2005, when she saw a documentary about Bang Kwang Central Prison, which featured a British prisoner who mentioned how the charity was helping him. Her interest in Prisoners Abroad grew steadily as a result of the charity’s inclusive approach to individual supporters and the inspirational quality of the newsletters. Mary has a corporate background with experience in business management and IT and has worked as a consultant and senior level leader in a number of large global corporations, most recently overseeing service transition for BP’s largest international IT programmes in Group Finance and Retail. She also has five years’ experience as a company-appointed Trustee Director for a UK occupational pension fund.
Stuart Cole Expand Stuart has been a volunteer service user representative for the Croydon Drug Agency since 2008, representing clients’ views about the service and treatment they receive. He was also instrumental in setting up The Croydon Service User Council for Substance Misuse. He then retrained in Health & Social Care and was commissioned to design and implement a powder cocaine awareness group which started in May 2010. He has taken a degree in Drug and Alcohol Counselling and been a substance abuse counsellor. He has been a Senior Support Worker at Evolve Housing and is now working as a Therapist in The Lighthouse; a rehabilitation centre in Southend-on-Sea. Having served a prison sentence overseas in 2006/2007, he started supporting Prisoners Abroad by attending and speaking at fundraising events, the highlight of which was being invited to Lambeth Palace to address the Archbishop of Canterbury and guests. He was the guest editor of the PA ‘Year Review' 2009/10. He has written and published two books about his personal journey; ‘Two Years’ and ‘A message to my Family’.
Martin Atkinson MA FCA Expand Martin trained as an accountant in London, initially working in the city before moving to the voluntary sector in 1995. He has been Finance Director for several medium size charities, most recently Ambitious About Autism, and currently combines working as a charities finance consultant with a second career as an artist. He travels extensively and has lived and worked in Zambia, where he managed a honey factory, and India.
Prof Nick Hardwick CBE - Vice Chair Expand Nick became Chair of the Parole Board in March 2016. He also has a part-time role a Professor in Criminal Justice at the School of Law, Royal Holloway University of London. From 2010 to 2016 he was HM Chief Inspector of Prisons responsible for reporting on the treatment of prisoners and the conditions in prisons, immigration detention, police custody and other forms of detention throughout England and Wales. The inspectorate is an independent, human rights based body responsible for delivering the UK’s obligations that arise from its status as a party to the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention Against Torture. From 2003 to 2010 Nick set up and was the first Chair of the Independent Police Complaints Commission. The first half of his career was in the voluntary sector working with young offenders for the National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NACRO), young homeless people for Centrepoint and refugees and asylum seekers for the Refugee Council. He is the voluntary Chair of New Horizon Youth Centre and Patron for Unlock.
Wayne Murray Expand Wayne left his role as Head of Fundraising & Brand at Refugee Action in August 2017 and joined the fundraising and communications agency Audience where he is working on a range of charity campaigns. He is a fundraising and communications professional with 17 years’ experience at SMT and trustee level across all fundraising, communication and brand disciplines, and is currently a fundraising mentor. He has been particularly successful at building seamless, bespoke and multi-channel fundraising and communication strategies for charities both large and small. Wayne has significant experience of securing, managing and reporting against £1 million + donations and grants. Previous roles include Head of Individual Giving at Amnesty International and Client Services Director at Pure Fundraising. Wayne also headed up the fundraising and Communications team at Prisoners Abroad in 2006.
Dr Vivienne Nathanson Expand Vivienne recently retired from the British Medical Association where she headed departments including medical ethics, public health and human rights. She is currently Principal Advisor on Public Health to the World Medical Association as well as Chair of the Ethics Committee at RCOG. She has lectured on public health and on health care ethics for many years and is currently an honorary Professor of Health care ethics at the University of Durham School for Health, as well as lecturing regularly at the University of London. She has had a longstanding interest in prison health and has visited a number of overseas prisons with the International Committee of the Red Cross. She lectures regularly on prison health and health care ethics.
Matthew Rhodes OBE Expand After a degree in Archaeology and Anthropology at Cambridge Matthew moved into the law. He trained at City firm Ashurst and spent two years post qualification at the firm as a commercial litigator. He left in 2000 to set up www.rollonfriday.com, the online legal community, and has worked for it ever since. Matthew is also a founding director of BCKR, a venture designed to get partners at law firms on the boards of charities and NGOs, a visiting lecturer at BPP law school and a trustee of the Solicitors’ Benevolent Association. He launched a scheme in the last recession enabling lawyers made redundant to provide free advice to charities and law centres. He has just launched a new project in conjunction with St Mungo’s to get homeless people working at City law firms. He was appointed an OBE in the 2011 New Year's List for services to legal pro bono.
Lynn Saunders Expand After a social work degree, Lynn worked as a probation officer for five years before joining the Prison Service on the accelerated promotion scheme. She has worked in ten prisons in a variety of roles most recently as Governor of Whatton a medium secure prison for people convicted of sexual offences, Lincoln a category B local prison; and Morton Hall a women’s prison for predominantly foreign national prisoners. Lynn was also previously a Trustee of Rethink Mental Illness a National Mental Health Charity and has a longstanding interest in mental health issues. She is Chair and a founding trustee of the Safer Living Foundation a charity working to prevent sexual crime. Lynn has worked as a Senior Lecturer at Nottingham Polytechnic (Now Nottingham Trent University) and has a Masters Degree in Criminology from Nottingham University. She is currently engaged in a part-time PhD in socio-legal studies. She was awarded an OBE in the 2017 New Year’s List for public and voluntary services to prisoners in the UK and abroad.
Toby Rogers Expand Toby was a service user of Prisoners Abroad while serving a 10 year sentence in the USA for firearms possession. The advice and support that he received from Prisoners Abroad was instrumental in securing his passport, which allowed for his deportation in a timely manner. He was deported back to the UK in April 2016, relying on Prisoners Abroad to get immediate help with food, shelter and benefits. Upon accessing support, learning the country, and regaining his feet, Toby began volunteering at Crisis Skylight London, and worked as a support worker with St. Giles Trust, while studying his NVQ in Information, Advice and Guidance. He now works full-time, with St. Giles as a Keyworker, helping people with their individual needs, and supporting them to get back into work. Toby has also volunteered with Prisoners Abroad, participating in a video production, and representing Prisoners Abroad at various events.