Unlock’s co-founder, Bob Turney, becomes a patron

We are extremely delighted to announce that Bob Turney, one of Unlock’s co-founders, has joined us as a patron.  

Bob had served twenty years in various prisons then gone on to gain a degree in Forensic Social Work. By 1997, he was enjoying a career as a Probation Officer, yet time and time again was coming across people who were struggling to reintegrate back into society despite their best efforts to put their offending behind them. There was, he believed, a need for an organisation that could support them and the idea of founding one was formed.  

Unlock was launched in 1999. It went on to gain charitable status in 2000. However, with growing demands on his time as a probation officer and with a growing family, Bob felt it time to take a back seat and make way for full-time staff to take the charity forward.   

Writing in theRecord in 2017, Bob describes his own experiences of ‘going straight’ and his role in the founding of Unlock. He was by then a patron of the Longford Trust and had been attending the Trust’s annual lecture and award ceremony in 2016 when much to his delight, Unlock was awarded the Longford Prize. The event provided a wonderful opportunity for him and Unlock to re-connect and we are thrilled that he again pledged to support our work saying, “I am really grateful to all the staff and volunteers at Unlock for the vital work they are doing in helping people to cast off the baggage of their past. My time with this wonderful charity was incredibly rewarding and I am so happy to see it going from strength to strength.” 

Welcome back Bob! 

Julie Harmsworth