Sasha is Chair of the Trustees at the Centre for Women’s Justice and a founding member. She's currently the Chief Executive of Irwell Valley Housing association. She is a Women’s Studies MA and a lifelong feminist, having worked at Rape Crisis and been involved in many housing and support projects for women. Sasha is also a Board member of North West Housing, promoting housing co-operartives in the North West and a member of WISH (Women In Social Housing) North West.

Samira is an award winning journalist and broadcaster. She presents radio and TV programmes for the BBC and previously worked for Channel 4 News. In 2009 she won Broadcast of the Year at the annual Stonewall Awards for her special report on “corrective” rape of lesbian women in South Africa.

Heather has over 25 years’ statutory and non-statutory experience in the UK and overseas working on human rights and equality with a specific focus on violence against women. This has included 4 years in Mali and Zimbabwe, 3 years seconded to the Foreign Office working on forced marriage, 5 years at Amnesty International and 5 years at Eaves a specialist charity working on violence against women. She is currently the research and development manager at Nia; a secular, rights based charity working with women who have experienced men’s violence.

Head of Finance & Operations
Nic has ten-years experience in operations management both in the private and charity sector. Previous roles have included project management, procurement, events, IT and travel writing. She is a radical feminist and member of the feminist campaign group Justice for Women which supports, and advocates on behalf of, women who have killed abusive men. Nic leads on all finance, operations, communications and fundraising for CWJ

Solicitor
Kate represents clients in public and private law challenges against public authorities. She has developed a particular interest in challenging policy failings within the criminal justice system that disproportionately affect women and girls who have been subjected to male violence. Prior to joining Centre for Women’s Justice Kate qualified as a Solicitor Advocate in 2017 with Higher Rights of Audience in the criminal courts. As a newly qualified solicitor she worked alongside Imran Khan QC at the firm Imran Khan and Partners, where as well as acting for individuals in criminal and civil litigation she represented the interests of core participant groups and families in two judge-led Public Inquiries. She joined Centre for Women’s Justice in 2018. Since working for Centre for Women’s Justice, Kate has acted in a number of legally significant and high-profile cases.

Solicitor
Tamsin graduated from the University of Exeter with a degree in Law and has since achieved a Distinction in both her LPC and Masters from the University of Law. Prior to joining CWJ, she worked as a Caseworker in the Public Law department at Duncan Lewis Solicitor, assisting on civil claims against the state, asylum applications and appeals, as well as with judicial reviews. She currently volunteers at Refuge on the National Domestic Abuse Helpline, providing emotional and practical support to predominantly victims of domestic abuse.

Communications & Fundraising Assistant
Capella has a background in public relations and administration. She has previously worked for organisations in the private, public and third sectors. Her most recent role was as a coordinator at a women’s centre. Capella has also volunteered on the SARSAS helpline where she provided emotional support to survivors of rape and sexual abuse. She joined CWJ in November 2022 and supports with the delivery of the communications strategy and fundraising plan.

Having started as a solicitor in the private sector, Katy has since spent over 15 years in senior voluntary sector roles focused on criminal justice, human rights and equality. At the Prison Reform Trust she co-ordinated Lord Laming’s review of looked after children in the criminal justice system, pursued new legal protection for women whose offending is driven by their experience of domestic abuse, and helped develop the London Blueprint for Women in Contact with the Criminal Justice System. Katy recently researched and wrote a report for Advance about mothers involved in offending who are survivors of domestic abuse, and their children. Katy continues to focus on overcoming gender discrimination against women and girls in and around the criminal justice system. At CWJ, Katy leads on our criminalisation project which aims to achieve permanent change in the state’s treatment of women at risk of criminalisation due to domestic abuse in England and Wales.

Purna has worked extensively in the UK and beyond on inequalities and the pursuit of human rights, including as Deputy Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) where she also taught gender and development, as Head of Human Rights for the Commonwealth Secretariat and as Director for the Asia-Pacific Programme at Amnesty International. She has consulted with organisations including Article 19 and the British Council and has been on the management and advisory groups of non-governmental organisations including the Refugee Women's Resource Project and Southall Black Sisters. PS was previously a board member of the Kaleidoscope Trust (an LGBT rights charity), RISE (a domestic abuse charity) and the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative. Purna joined the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU) in November 2020 as a Visiting Professor, where her work focuses on internationalising and facilitating joined-up learning on work to end violence against women. Purna is the project lead on the International Feminist Legal Network (IFLN) project - the formation of a network of lawyers and legally focussed NGOs (doing strategic legal work and other policy impact work) on male psychological violence against women.

Sanchita is a recognised expert in human rights and equality law, policy and practice, with over twenty years of working both in the UK and internationally. She is Director at British Institute of Human Rights providing strategic leadership and management, overseeing operations, with a lead role in policy and campaigning. Sanchita has previously convened clinical legal modules at undergraduate level and continues to guest lecture. Sanchita has a particular expertise in addressing violence against women from a human rights perspective, having worked on a number of UK and international projects on these issues, including on "honour" crimes.

Sarah is a solicitor and founding partner of the firm Deighton Pierce Glynn. She specialises in civil rights and civil liberties claims arising from abuses by the state. She has particular expertise in challenges to state failings in relation to violence against women and has been involved in a number of key cases in this connection, including domestic homicide cases where police and other state bodies have been found to have contributed to the death of women at the hands of violent men (eg Colette Lynch, Rachael Slack, Maria Stubbings, Rebecca Sessacar, Cheryleee Shennan, Christine and Lucy Lee); and the Supreme Court cases of Michael v South Wales Police, and DSD v Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, where she represented women’s and campaigning organisations as intervenors.

Lead Enquiries & Policy Development Lawyer
Nogah is a solicitor who heads the CWJ legal enquiries and training team. The team provides second-tier pro bono legal advice to support workers at frontline women’s sector organisations. Nogah also prepares and delivers training to frontline women’s organisations on challenging failings in the criminal justice system, and carries out systemic work such as super-complaints and policy work on issues arising from our engagement with frontline organisations. Before joining CWJ Nogah worked a solicitor for 18 years at human rights legal firms, and was a partner at Bhatt Murphy and Hickman & Rose, where she specialised in challenging state bodies, particularly in the criminal justice system. She acted in a range of cases involving failures in policing of violence against women, including inadequate investigation of rape and trafficking, domestic homicide and sexual exploitation by police officers. She has also supported survivors as a volunteer on the National Domestic Abuse Helpline.

In-House Barrister
Natasha is a criminal barrister who was called to the Bar in 2018. Prior to joining CWJ she completed pupillage at QEB Hollis Whiteman where she had a busy general crime practice, both defending and prosecuting. She was instructed to appear in the Crown, Magistrates’ and Youth Courts. Previous to that, she was a caseworker at the Howard League for Penal Reform where she provided legal advice and representation to children and young people in custody, including representing them at parole hearings and independent adjudication hearings. Natasha also interned in The Hague at the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and at the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. Natasha is committed to providing women and girls with access to legal advice and human rights education.

Trainee Solicitor
Giulia graduated from LSE with a law degree and aims to complete her LPC next year. She previously worked as a Family Law Paralegal and at Advocate as a Caseworker. She is currently a Helpline Volunteer at Nia East London Rape Crisis, providing emotional and practical support to women who have experienced sexual violence. Giulia has a lifelong commitment to fighting for justice and human rights, with a particular interest in gender equality and ending male violence against women and girls.

Ruth has over 20 years’ experience as a barrister specialising in civil actions against the police, public law, inquests, public inquiries and prisoners’ rights. She represented women who were deceived into relationships by undercover police officers in the Undercover Policing Inquiry and represented DSD and NVB in the Supreme Court challenge which confirmed that victims can sue the police for serious investigative failures. She has consistently been ranked as a “star junior” in Chambers and Partners in the field of police law. Ruth assists CWJ with our Police Perpetrated Domestic Abuse (PPDA) project - working to bring about structural change to the way that complaints by victims of police perpertrated abuse are investigated and dealt with.

Esohe is a lawyer with a doctorate in International Economic and Trade Law. She is also an Ethno-clinical Cultural Mediator who has provided services for more than 20 years to victims of trafficking in Italy. A member of the Board of Directors of the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), she is the founding Executive Director of Associazione Iroko Onlus, which provides services to victims of trafficking in Italy. She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA-UCDG) Italy Chapter. She is also a founding member and Trustee of Edo Women’s Development Initiative (EWDI) based in Benin City, Nigeria, which raises awareness about issues which negatively impact women and provides crucial services to indigent women in Edo State.

Janice Turner has been a columnist and interviewer for The Times since 2003. She won the British Press Awards best interviewer in 2014 and the Orwell Prize for Journalism in 2020. At The Times she has a wide brief, but has written frequently on feminist issues including prostitution, pornography, women in prisons, reproductive rights, the debate around the Gender Recognition Act and violence against women. She has reported on feminist issues, including the headscarf debate in Turkey, the Rotherham grooming gangs and latterly the Irish abortion referendum. She has made a speciality of interviewing prominent women leaders including Hillary Clinton, Julia Gillard, Helle Thorning-Schmidt, Melinda Gates and Condoleezza Rice for The Times Saturday magazine. Besides The Times, she has written for many other publications including New Statesman, The Guardian, Mail on Sunday, Red, Elle, Harper’s, Good Housekeeping, Evening Standard, Radio Times. Early in her career she launched and edited two women’s magazines for Bauer Publishing.

Solicitor
Debaleena is a human rights solicitor who qualified in 2007. She represents clients in public and private law challenges against public authorities. Before joining CWJ, Debaleena worked in private practice (Fisher Meredith LLP and Birnberg Peirce & Partners) for several years, before joining the legal team at Liberty. She began her career specialising in actions against the police and prison law, but at an early stage began to focus on women’s rights, particularly representing survivors of sexual violence when they had been failed by the State. She has acted in a number of novel and high profile cases.

Solicitor
Harriet is committed to challenging violence against women and supporting women’s access to justice. Prior to joining CWJ, Harriet qualified as a Solicitor Advocate in 2021 with Higher Rights of Audience in the civil courts. Harriet has previously worked at Birnberg Peirce and at GT Stewart Solicitors, where she specialised in civil liberties, actions against the police and prison service, and inquests. Harriet also has experience in policy, research, and investigative work from her time at Reprieve, Human Rights Watch, and the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC).

Finance Officer
Jemima joined the team in October 2022 and has over 12 years of experience in Administration. Her previous roles include Financial Administrator, Legal Administrator, and Local Authority Administrator. Jemima supports the Head of Finance & Operations in managing the finance and payroll functions of the charity.

Anna Mazzola is a human rights solicitor specialising in cases arising from the criminal justice system, particularly cases for victims of crime. She works on the Enquiries Team at CWJ as well as providing training to advocates. She has over ten years' experience in human rights firms dealing with judicial review cases, claims against the police and other state bodies, inquests and public inquiries. Previous to that, she worked within the Government Legal Service. She is also a novelist. Anna works with CWJ delivering training to women’s sector organisations.