OUR BOARD
Lesley Tregear – Chair
Lesley Tregear was Chair of the Association of YOT Managers (AYM) from 2016, actively working to improve policy development and practice for children involved with the criminal justice system, challenging national developments in youth justice that did not support the needs of children. Lesley has been actively involved in youth justice since 1992 when she became a social worker in the Warwickshire Juvenile Justice Team. She later became the operations manager in the newly formed Warwickshire Youth Offending Team and in 2009, became the Warwickshire YOT Manager. The service became one of the highest performing YOTs; reducing first time entrants, re-offending rates and custody for children in Warwickshire. In 2016 Lesley also implemented the Warwickshire Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub for children and adults. On retirement, Lesley took on the roles of AYM’s Policy and Communications Officer, and Learning Coach for Unitas.
Chris Bath
Chris Bath is Chief Executive of the National Appropriate Adult Network (NAAN), a membership charity and infrastructure organisation working to maximise the effectiveness of appropriate adults. His work focuses on safeguarding the interests of people who are particularly vulnerable in police detention, interviews, and searches, for example people with mental ill health or learning disabilities neurodiverse people, and all children. He is a member of the Home Office’s PACE (Police and Criminal Evidence Act) Strategy Board, a Fellow of the international Access to Justice Knowledge Hub, and a co-founder of the British Society of Criminology’s Vulnerability Research Network. Chris has worked in criminal justice charities since 2005, and was previously Executive Director of Unlock, the national charity for people with convictions. He has a degree in Management Science from Warwick Business School. He is passionate about the potential for small organisations to effect systemic change.
Shadae Cazeau
Shadae Cazeau is Head of Equality and Access to Justice at the Bar Standards Board, where she leads on the programme of equality and access to justice reforms, promoting equality and diversity at the Bar and access to justice, and provides executive leadership to the organisation on equality and diversity matters. She was previously Head of Policy for EQUAL, a National Independent Advisory Group who focus on improving outcomes for Black, Asian and minority ethnic groups in the criminal justice system. Shadae is a qualified Barrister with several years’ experience in providing leadership and policy advice on discrimination, advancing equality, the youth justice system and policing, including four years at the Independent Office for Police Conduct. Shadae has worked closely with service users in the criminal justice system including within her role as Director of a free legal advice clinic in Brixton, providing free advice and consultations.
Anne-Marie Day
Dr Anne-Marie Day is a Criminology Lecturer at Keele University. She has also previously worked at the Youth Justice Board as a Senior Policy Adviser; and held various management and Senior Practitioner roles within Youth Offending Teams in Greater Manchester. She has been an associate member of the AYJ for several years during which she has engaged with various issues facing children and young people in the youth justice system; including contributing to written submissions on children in custody, and children in care. Anne-Marie has advised senior ministers and civil servants on key issues within youth justice, including preventing violent extremism, anti-social behaviour, domestic abuse, and children in care. All of Anne-Marie’s research has been focused on the voices and perspectives of the children themselves, which has formed the basis of recommendations to reform the youth justice system.
John Drew
John Drew was Chief Executive of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales from 2009 to 2013 and prior to that had spent a decade as a Director of Social Services and Housing in the east London borough of Redbridge. During John’s period as the Chief Executive of the YJB, he led a repositioning of the YJB that amongst other things contributed significantly to the reduction of the number of children held in custody in that time. John has worked as a children’s social worker, principally in the areas of children in care, in need of protection, or who were offending, since 1974. Since retiring in 2013, John has taken on a number of non-executive and part-time roles and was also appointed a C.B.E. for services to youth justice in the Queen’s Birthday Honours in 2013.
Ahmed Ibrahim
Ahmed Ibrahim sits on the national youth panel of the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) as the London panellist, advising the Director and policing chiefs on the issue of ‘improving trust and confidence in the criminal justice system for young people’. Ahmed passionately believes in effective and proactive youth representation: he has engaged with over 800 young people across England and Wales to find effective solutions, and has shared these with senior politicians and policing staff. Working with the IOPC has given Ahmed the platform to diversify the conversation in policing, especially ensuring that often marginalised voices (particularly those of racially minoritised communities) are heard in tackling the issues of the criminal justice system.
Ian Langley
Ian Langley is a qualified Social Worker, who started his career in 1982 working in a variety of residential settings with young people until 1995. Since then he has respectively worked as a Child Protection Social Worker, Probation Officer and Youth Justice Worker/Youth Offending Team (YOT Manager), the latter in Hampshire and Wiltshire. He also led the Supporting Families Programme in Hampshire before semi-retiring in 2020. Since then Ian has supported an number of YOTs in a consultancy role and is the Independent Chair of one YOT Board. He is also a Regulation 44 Independent Visitor to two Children's Homes. Ian has also been the Chair of Trustees at his local Volunteer Centre and continues to be both a Vice President for the Centre as well as one of their volunteer drivers regularly taking people in need to health appointments.
Emmanuel Onapa
Emmanuel Onapa is a writer and journalist, who has featured in publications such as Rolling Stone UK, Metro, and Evening Standard. He has previously been nominated for the Criminal Justice Alliance Outstanding Journalism Award in 2022. Emmanuel is on a scholarship studying MA in Research Architecture, examining how architecture can engage with questions of contemporary culture, politics, media, ecology and justice and question whether spatial practice can become a form of research. He is also the Campaigns Manager for Hackney Account, a youth-led social action project. He has worked as a Communications Assistant for The 4Front Project, an organisation empowering young people and communities to fight for justice, peace and freedom. Emmanuel is interested in how Black experiences fit into larger political, social and cultural frameworks.
Tony Book – Treasurer
For the past 29 years, Tony Book served as a Magistrate at Brighton Magistrates’ Court where he chaired both Adult and Youth sittings and now serves as a trustee for Citizens Advice (CAWS). Tony was also a Youth Panel Vice Chair and Appraisal Coordinator for the Central Sussex Bench. Tony has extensive experience in the private sector, including at Lever Brothers and American Express and was also the Founding Chief Executive of Compass Consultancy, specialising in database marketing techniques. Tony has longstanding experience of community service, including working as a STEM Ambassador, a School Governor, a gateway assessor at the Citizens’ Advice Bureau, a Magistrate, and being a member of the University of Brighton’s Medical School Fitness to Practice committee.