Who we are

Find out more about the people involved in Unlock

Our staff

Paula Harriott Chief Executive
Paula has a vast experience in the criminal justice sector. As a nationally known lived experience leader her work has always been centred in principles of equity, inclusion, diversity and removal of stigma.
Paula joins Unlock after holding the role of Head of Prisoner Involvement at the Prison Reform Trust since 2017. She previously held senior roles at User Voice and Revolving Doors Agency.
She has consistently built representational frameworks for people who are often absent in the debates about criminal justice policy and developed innovative practice in the employment of people with criminal records in prison, probation and the charity sector.
She founded the Prisoner Policy Network, a network of c1000 serving and former prisoners who are involved in policy and advocacy work and has led on developing broader lived experience leadership programmes to advance the representation of people with criminal records in the workplace.
She has also held roles providing consultancy advice on service user involvement and developing peer support and user involvement programmes.
She is the co-host of the Radio Academy award-nominated podcast The Secret Life of Prisons, which explores current topics affecting those in prison and beyond.
Paula is Chair of Mac-UK, a Trustee of Changing Tunes and at PACT (Prison Advice and Care Trust).
Debbie Sadler Head of Delivery and Programmes
Debbie is responsible for designing and delivering the core support Unlock provides to people with criminal records. This includes our online information and advice and online community, our peer-led helpline supporting people in the community and prisons and developing and supporting our community outreach programme. Debbie’s work also includes working with prison staff and other providers to deliver our ‘Moving on with Conviction’ workshops to people in prison.
As an expert in criminal record disclosure law, Debbie leads our training and consultancy work with practitioners, employers and universities. This includes evaluating current recruitment processes and support to develop lawful and inclusive recruitment/admissions policies and practices to encourage applicants with a criminal record.
Debbie is a Trustee of the Helplines Partnership and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and has a degree in Business Studies from Canterbury Christchurch University and is currently studying for an MSc in leadership.
Scott Kidd Head of Operations, Governance and Programme Support
Scott Kidd is Head of Operations, Governance and Programme Support at Unlock and a member of the senior leadership team. He works across the organisation to support effective governance, programme delivery, organisational development and strategic priorities.
Scott brings extensive experience across criminal justice, higher education, research and programme development. He has led and contributed to projects for government, policing, local authorities and criminal justice organisations, with particular interests in lived experience leadership, rehabilitation, social inclusion and institutional change.
At Unlock, Scott is committed to ensuring that lived experience meaningfully shapes programmes, policy and decision-making, while helping to build the strong organisational systems and partnerships needed to deliver lasting change.
Chris Hoile Helpline Advisor
Chris deals with people who contact our helpline, assisting them to overcome the barriers of having a criminal record.
He is the ‘ear to the ground’, providing evidence to our policy and advocacy team, so they can challenge employers and government to make changes which will make life for people with criminal records fairer.
Chris joined Unlock in June 2022, having previously worked in the education sector. He has a passion to help people with criminal records and support them to move on positively with their lives.
Evan Davis Community Network Coordinator
Evan in responsible for delivering Unlock’s “Better Advice for All” project which aims to connect with community organisations who are on the frontline in offering advice and support to under-represented or minority groups who have a criminal record.
Evan has a lived experience of both the criminal justice system and care system which has given him a true passion to fight for and represent those whose voices are not currently heard enough.
Evan joined Unlock in April 2025 having spent time gaining experience as a volunteer on our peer-led helpline.
Harry Clouth Fundraising Officer
Harry has a wealth of experience having worked in the voluntary sector for over 25 years fundraising for charities from a local to a regional and national levels.
Legally trained he has exceptional research skills and a successful track record of raising funds.
Sam Christopher Policy Officer
Sam works on policy for Unlock. Conducting research into the barriers of a criminal record and working on our campaigns to change the systems that hold people back.
With a background working for MPs in Parliament, Sam leads on our work lobbying and influencing policymakers.
Neil Stainer Communications Officer
Neil works on social media, web and communications. He has a background in writing, web content and communications both in the voluntary sector, with Beating Time, and for more than 20 years in the public sector.
Neil joined Unlock in September 2026 and has a strong belief in offering people a second chance and the tools to make positive changes to their own lives and to society.

Our President

Judge John Samuels KC President
Judge John Samuels KC sat in the Crown Court for some 27 years, and was later a judicial member of the Parole Board for his maximum tenure of 10 years. In addition to his role at Unlock, he is a Patro ...
n of Prisoners’ Advice Service and Revolving Doors; a former Chair (and later President) of Prisoners’ Education Trudst; he previously chaired the Criminal Justice Alliance; and was a trustee and Chair of the Criminal Committee of the Howard League for Penal Reform.

Our trustees

Anne Fox Chair
Anne brings a wealth of experience of leadership in the voluntary sector, having led Clinks, the national infrastructure charity supporting voluntary organisations working with people in the criminal ...
justice system in England and Wales for the ten years. Anne is passionate about the power and potential of the voluntary sector and enabling it to be an effective source of essential support for people who deserve every chance of a bright future. She is committed to the full inclusion of people with criminal records and anti-racism.
Trevor Dighton Treasurer
Trevor is a qualified accountant with a 40 year career in various financial and general management positions both in business and the finance profession, in this country and overseas. For the 18 years ...
before retirement in 2014, Trevor was Chief Financial Officer of a FTSE 100 security services company, part of which managed prisons, juvenile correction facilities and secure training centres around the world. This sparked Trevor’s interest in the fair treatment of people in justice systems. Since retiring he has spent five years as Treasurer/Trustee of Justice Defenders, a charity involved in the legal training of prisoners and prison officers in 36 prisons in East Africa. He joined the board of trustees at Unlock as Treasurer in July 2024.
Carolyn Braby Trustee
Carolyn Braby has worked in arts and education charities for more than thirty years. She is currently Director of Finance and Operations at Central School of Ballet in London, a vocational dance schoo ...
l, and she previously worked for the Lyric Theatre Hammersmith, Warehouse Theatre Croydon, Compass Theatre Company, Booktrust and the Conservatoire for Dance and Drama. She is interested in fairer recruitment and ensuring equality of access. She joined Unlock’s board of trustees in July 2024.
Steve Lorber Trustee
Steve is a solicitor specialising in employment law and workplace data privacy together with advice on charity law and governance. He believes recent data protection law can be used both to limit and ...
challenge the use of criminal records in recruitment and to support those at risk of stigmatisation and exclusion from the labour market. With a wide legal experience, he previously spent eleven years working in a law centre seeking to provide access to justice for individuals and community groups in Islington. Previously a trustee of a charity providing shelter for rough sleepers and bereavement counselling to children, he is currently a trustee of Westminster Medical School Research Trust. He joined the board of Unlock in February 2020.
Hamish MacLellan Trustee
Hamish has had a long career in financial services, specialising in European Equities, and has held senior positions at several US investment banks. He is currently in a senior role at an alternative ...
asset manager that is a leading player in European Private Debt. Hamish has a passionate interest in supporting those caught up in the criminal justice system and is a trustee for a charity in the sector that delivers life and systems coaching into UK prisons. He holds a Sloan Masters in Leadership and Strategy from the London Business School and a BSc (Hons) in Statistics with Management Science Techniques from Cardiff University. Hamish joined Unlock’s board of trustees in May 2020.
Rich McStraw Trustee
Rich has been working in the criminal justice space since 2017, and brings his experience in fundraising, impact, finance, and compliance to the Board. He is currently working at StandOut, a prison-ba ...
sed charity in London, as their fundraising and development manager. He has a MA in Philosophy from the Open University, with a focus on the aims of punishment, and is currently studying a BSc in Combined STEM. Rich joined the Unlock board of trustees in October 2024.
Fionnuala Ratcliffe Trustee
Fionnuala is research and policy lead for Transform Justice where she advocates for change on a wide range of criminal justice issues, including court remand for children, the use of detention in poli ...
ce custody, and the quality of criminal defence advice and advocacy. She leads Transform Justice’s work promoting the use of ways to resolve crime without going to court, and its CourtWatch London programme, which brings public volunteers into magistrates’ courts to observe what happens and report what they see. Fionnuala is also an associate of Involve, a public participation charity, and previously spent five years as a consultant specialising in public and community engagement and research. She is a facilitator and volunteers for the charity Circles South East. Fionnuala joined the Unlock board of trustees in October 2024.
Mindy Sanghera Trustee
Mindy is head of equity, diversity and inclusion at a social justice charity, where she combines strategic thinking with a practical approach to building an inclusive culture. As a skilled trainer, sh ...
e has previously supported women in custody and other community learners to achieve their Level 3 NVQ in Advice and Guidance, a gateway to meaningful employment opportunities. Her experience of the criminal justice system gives her a unique insight and contributes to her passion for breaking down barriers related to resettlement and fuels her commitment to supporting individuals as they reintegrate into society. Mindy works with a several organisations to support and advocate for others, utilising her in-depth understanding of the complex challenges – personal, societal and structural – faced by people with convictions. Mindy joined the Unlock board of trustees in October 2024.
Tom Wheatley Trustee
Tom started his career in the Prison Service in 1994 as a prison officer and became a prison governor in 2006. Since then, he has managed a range of different prisons in both the public and private sectors and has led the outsourcing of critical services in policing.
Most of his career has been in long-term, high security prisons. Tom has acted as a trustee for the National Justice Museum and is currently a trustee of a charity that provides education programmes in schools to provide specific drug and alcohol education programmes to enable young people to lead safe and healthy lives. He holds a BSc in Behavioural Science and a PGDip in Applied Management from Henley Business School. Tom joined Unlock’s board of trustees in October 2022.
Belinda Winder Trustee
Belinda is a Professor of Forensic Psychology and is Research Director of the Centre of Crime, Offending, Prevention and Engagement (COPE) in the School of Social Sciences at Nottingham Trent Universi ...
ty. Working with people with lived experience, she seeks to make a difference in the world by designing and undertaking mixed-method research to inform and provide evidence-based practice and policy. Her primary field is sexual offending, but she also has a deep interest in societal rejection of people with any kind of conviction and the reintegration of people into the community (particularly where people have served long prison sentences). Belinda is a co-founder and former trustee of the environmental charity, Trees for Cities, and a co-founder and former trustee of the justice system charity, Safer Living Foundation (SLF). She received a Butler Trust Certificate for her work in prisoner rehabilitation in 2016, the Robin Corbett Award for Prisoner Rehabilitation in 2015, the Guardian University Award for Social and Community Impact in 2016 and The Third Sector Charity of the Year in 2019 (as Vice Chair and Head of Research and Evaluation at the SLF). Belinda joined the Unlock board of trustees in October 2024.

Our patrons

Lorna Hackett
Lorna Hackett has spent more than twenty years at the Bar, practising in public law and prison law, with a particular focus on the principle that no one should have decisions made about their liberty, ...
their progression or their future without a fair and properly reasoned process. That work has taken her into prisons and before tribunals across the country, leaving her with a clear view of what happens to people long after a sentence has been served — the doors that stay closed, the forms that keep asking, the past that refuses to become past.She is also a composer, pianist and electronic artist. Recording and performing as Lorna James, her deep house album “The Right to Be Forgotten” (August 2026) fuses piano and string composition with deep house and breakbeat, and takes its title and its subject directly from the cause Unlock exists to champion. Eight of its tracks have been featured on BBC Introducing. The album was written from a simple conviction, and it is the same one that brings her to Unlock: “Everybody has the right to be forgotten – the right to forgive, to be forgiven, to privacy, to progress, to change.”Lorna brings to her role as Patron both a lawyer’s understanding of how the system works and an artist’s belief in second chances. She is running the Great South Run 2026 in aid of Unlock.
Dr Shadd Maruna
“It is an honour to be associated with Unlock — you are doing great work”
Matt Hyde FRSA
“People with convictions face so many obstacles to rebuild their lives – whether that be discrimination or lack of practical support. This does them a disservice and is damaging for wider ...
society. Unlock is a brilliant charity because it works to remove these barriers creating a fairer and more inclusive society and I’m proud to be one of its Patrons.”
The Rt Hon. the Lord Garnier KC
“Prisons are a secret world known only to those who work or are imprisoned within them. To the public on the outside it is far too often a matter of ‘out of sight, out of mind’. Unlock is one of the vital metaphorical windows through which the public can see into the closed world of the prisoner and learn what is being done in their name,
and through which the prisoner can see out into society and know that there is a place of hope and acceptance for him or her once they have completed their sentence. Unlock does invaluable work and without it Britain would be a poorer place.”
Professor Fergus McNeill
“I am delighted and honoured to have been asked to become a patron of Unlock. I have long admired Unlock’s work, and I’m eager to offer what support I can as someone with a deep, enduring, p ...
ersonal and professional interest in rehabilitation and reintegration.”
Bryan Gibson
“As someone who helped the founders of Unlock (as both lawyer and publisher), I have always been fascinated by keys to going straight. Determination, respect, encouragement and here the support ...
of Unlock, are fundamental components of a good outcome – coupled with wider understanding that no-one should be defined by past transgressions.”

Who we are

Find out more about the people involved in Unlock

Our staff

Our President

Our trustees

Our patrons

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