Our Patrons

Rev Jonathan Aitken

Jonathan has been a longstanding friend and supporter of PF and brings a wealth of relevant experience to us. He is an ex-MP, ex-Cabinet Minister and ex-prisoner, and now an ordained deacon in the Church of England.

In recent years, he has become a well-known campaigner for prison reform and offender rehabilitation. He is also the author of 17 books including award-winning biographies of President Richard Nixon, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Charles W Colson and John Newton.

In 2007 he was appointed chair of the Centre for Social Justice study group on prison reform which produced the acclaimed report, Locked Up Potential: a Strategy Report on Prison Reform and Rehabilitating Offenders. In 2014 he was the author of a new Centre for Social Justice report, Meaningful Mentoring.

 

Bishop Rachel Treweek

Bishop Rachel has been Bishop of Gloucester since 2015 and was appointed Bishop for Prisons in 2020.

She was brought up in Hertfordshire and was educated at Broxbourne School. She trained as a Speech and Language Therapist at Reading University where she gained a BA in Linguistics and Language Pathology. She worked as a Paediatric Speech and Language Therapist within the NHS and served on the Child Development Team at the Royal Free Hospital, before becoming the Clinical Manager for Paediatric Speech and Language Therapists in Health Centres across three North London health authorities.

Bishop Rachel began her life in ordained ministry in 1994, after training at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford. She served her title at St George & All Saints, Tufnell Park before becoming Vicar of St James the Less, Bethnal Green in 1999. During her time in Bethnal Green she also served as Children Missing Education Officer and Bishop’s Visitor in the Stepney area. She was appointed as Archdeacon of Northolt in 2006, serving in that role for five years, before becoming Archdeacon of Hackney in 2011.