Nazir Afzal
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Nazir Afzal (born October 1962, Birmingham) is a British solicitor and former prosecutor within the Crown Prosecution Service. Afzal spent most of his career in the Crown Prosecution Service, rising to be Chief Crown Prosecutor for
North West England North West England is one of nine official regions of England and consists of the ceremonial counties of England, administrative counties of Cheshire, Cumbria, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Merseyside. The North West had a population of ...
in 2011, a role he held until leaving the CPS in 2015. In April 2016 he was appointed chief executive of the Association of Police and crime commissioners; he resigned immediately after the May 2017 Manchester Arena bombing so that he could comment freely on the attack. He was appointed
Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
of the University of Manchester in 2022, succeeding Lemn Sissay on August 1. Since October 2017, he has been a member of the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) Complaints Committee. In 2018, he became the Chair of the Corporation Board at Hopwood Hall College in Rochdale, Greater Manchester. He is a Muslim, with conventional views in favour of women's rights and against forced marriage,
female genital mutilation Female genital mutilation (FGM), also known as female genital cutting, female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C) and female circumcision, is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. The practice is found ...
and so-called honour killings.


Early life and education

Afzal was born in Birmingham, his parents having recently emigrated from Pakistan. His father and his father's family worked for generations in catering for the British Army, and one of his relatives was killed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA) at the height of The Troubles in Northern Ireland. His family is of Pashtun ethnicity. He grew up with seven siblings in a two-up two-down in Small Heath. He was bullied and racially abused throughout his childhood; those around him saw no point in reporting the incidents to the police. Following a racially-motivated attack, aged 13, his father told him "The Police are not interested in you ..there is no justice". Afzal states that with this incident came the realisation that racism "wasn't something I had to put up with. And I certainly wasn't going to spend the rest of my life running from abusers". Afzal obtained his law degree from the University of Birmingham before attending The College of Law in Guildford, where he developed his interest in
criminal law Criminal law is the body of law that relates to crime. It prescribes conduct perceived as threatening, harmful, or otherwise endangering to the property, health, safety, and moral welfare of people inclusive of one's self. Most criminal law i ...
.


Career


Early career

Afzal worked as a solicitor in Birmingham from 1988 until moving to London in 1991, where he became a Crown Prosecutor. The first time one of Afzal's cases reached the national news was in August 1992, when the culprits were two supermarket employees who, following a works trip to the seaside, had sex in a crowded train back to London, and then lit up cigarettes in a no-smoking carriage. Afzal successfully prosecuted them for committing an indecent act and for smoking where not permitted to do so. This case was cited by an American academic in attempting to understand the British culture of tact. Another notable prosecution in his early career was that of serial killer
Colin Ireland Colin Ireland (16 March 1954 – 21 February 2012) was a British serial killer known as the Gay Slayer because his victims were gay. Criminologist David Wilson believes that Ireland was a psychopath. Ireland suffered a severely dysfunctio ...
. In 2001, he became the youngest person, and first Muslim, to be appointed as assistant Chief Crown Prosecutor.


Chief Crown Prosecutor

In 2011, he was appointed North West Chief Crown Prosecutor covering Greater Manchester, Cumbria and Lancashire. At that point in his career, he made it clear that prosecutors are public figures and should be out there engaging with the people, explaining themselves via the media." As one of the 13 chief crown prosecutors that cover England and Wales, he was responsible for over 100,000 prosecutions a year and managed 800 lawyers and paralegals. When he was promoted and moved to Manchester in 2011 he faced several high-profile cases, one involving a man killed while committing an aggravated burglary in which Afzal decided that the householder acted in reasonable self-defence. Afzal's team were responsible for the swift prosecution of that summer's looters, a judicial response described by an academic as "shock and awe". The Stepping Hill Hospital poisoning incident occurred that autumn, and 2011 closed with the unprovoked murder of a student from India. In 2012 he successfully prosecuted Dale Cregan, who was convicted of four murders (including that of two police officers) and three attempted murders, for which he was sentenced to a whole life order.


Violence, control, and gender

Afzal is best known for tackling cases involving violence against women and the
sexual exploitation of children Commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) is a commercial transaction that involves the sexual exploitation of a child, or person under the age of consent. CSEC involves a range of abuses, including but not limited to: the prostitution of ...
; the ''New York Times'' called him "Britain’s go-to prosecutor" for these areas. Until 2004, he had not been aware of forced marriages and
honour crime An honor killing (American English), honour killing (Commonwealth English), or shame killing is the murder of an individual, either an outsider or a member of a family, by someone seeking to protect what they see as the dignity and honor of t ...
s happening in the UK, but he was approached by a group of women with compelling testimony. They asked him to use his position to investigate, so he held a conference on the issues and set up a national database, cataloguing dozens of instances of potential crimes. 2005 saw the honour killing of Samaira Nazir; as area director for the CPS, Afzal was responsible for the prosecution of her relatives, and described the beliefs that led to her murder as "tragic and outdated". He thought that such traditional attitudes would die out with the older immigrant generation, but by 2008, by which time he was the CPS's lead on honour-based violence, he realised that young men held the same controlling beliefs about family honour and purity, and that education needed to start with primary school children to challenge this. "I have talked to loads of Muslim women and I can tell you that the greatest fear they have is not Islamophobia or being attacked by racists or being arrested on suspicion of terrorism. It is from within their own family." One of his first decisions on becoming a chief crown prosecutor was to initiate prosecutions in the case of the
Rochdale child sex abuse ring The Rochdale child sex abuse ring involved underage teenage girls in Rochdale, Greater Manchester, England. Nine men were convicted of sex trafficking and other offences including rape, trafficking girls for sex and conspiracy to engage in sexual ...
, overturning an earlier decision by the CPS. He suggested that "white professionals' over-sensitivity to
political correctness ''Political correctness'' (adjectivally: ''politically correct''; commonly abbreviated ''PC'') is a term used to describe language, policies, or measures that are intended to avoid offense or disadvantage to members of particular groups in socie ...
and fear of appearing racist may well have contributed to justice being stalled". He said "I do feel that there's a deficit of leadership in some parts of the Muslim community. They could be much more challenging of certain behaviours". He attributed the attacks to "evil men", saying that the key driver was "male power". A ''New York Times'' profile said: Afzal's work against grooming gangs led to criticism from "members of the Asian community" and a campaign to have him sacked and deported by the
far right Far-right politics, also referred to as the extreme right or right-wing extremism, are political beliefs and actions further to the right of the left–right political spectrum than the standard political right, particularly in terms of being ...
. Despite his actions being the catalyst for the successful prosecution of the Rochdale child sex abuse ring, he was targeted by the
English Defence League The English Defence League (EDL) is a far-right, Islamophobic organisation in the United Kingdom. A social movement and pressure group that employs street demonstrations as its main tactic, the EDL presents itself as a single-issue movement ...
and
door-stepped Doorstepping, or door-stepping, is an attempt to obtain an interview, or piece to camera In television and film, a piece to camera (PTC) is when a television presenter or a character speaks directly to the viewing audience through the camera. ...
by Nick Griffin, resulting in him needing police protection. Regarding far-right campaigns to deport Afzal, he reiterated "I was born in Birmingham. They can deport me to Birmingham if they want to", and said "I think if you are getting it from both sides, you are probably getting something right." He used his position to stress that abusers were found in all communities, and that the vast majority of paedophiles in Britain are white. In May 2013, he was responsible for the prosecution of disgraced former BBC presenter Stuart Hall, who was convicted of multiple sexual offences against girls and women. He promised to turn the attention of the CPS to forced marriage in the Traveller community, which he claimed was rife. Afzal put forward the theory, also proposed by Rochdale's then-MP
Simon Danczuk Simon Christopher Danczuk (; born 24 October 1966) is a British author and former Member of Parliament (MP) who represented the constituency of Rochdale between 2010 and 2017. He has co-written two books, ''Smile for the Camera: The Double Life ...
, that one explanation for the profile of the town's abusers was the prevalence of Pakistani-origin men in the night-time economy, i.e. as taxi drivers and workers in take-away shops.


After the CPS

In March 2015 it was reported that Afzal was leaving the CPS. A CPS spokesman said "Nazir Afzal is leaving the service as part of non-going drive for efficiency" and that "there has been no impropriety on the part of Mr Afzal". Once he left the CPS, Afzal began to speak even more widely, and found a large audience for his messages, that violence against women infects all communities, that authorities are still unwilling to believe the victims, and that there is a deficit of leadership in the British Muslim community. "Having prosecuted perpetrators from more than 60 countries and ealt withvictims from more than 50 countries, I know there isn't any community where women and girls are safe. It's a power thing and power sadly infects every community and therefore our responsibility has to begin with listening to victims and survivors." He draws parallels between the way gangs groom children for sexual exploitation and the way Islamists lure young people into
radicalisation Radicalization (or radicalisation) is the process by which an individual or a group comes to adopt increasingly views in opposition to a political, social, or religious status quo. The ideas of society at large shape the outcomes of radicalizat ...
. Both prey on young people who feel unwanted, unloved and are more likely to be open to manipulation, Afzal argued. He explained that strategies to target radicalisation had to appeal more to young people and called for more community-led efforts to combat the forces of radicalisation. Afzal became chief executive of the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners in 2016. He resigned from this post, which restricted his political expression, immeditately after the Manchester Arena bombing in May 2017 in order to express his views on the topical BBC television programme '' Question Time''. In 2017 he joined the Complaints Committee of the Independent Press Standards Organisation as its first BAME member. In January 2018 he was appointed, alongside Yasmin Khan of the Halo Project, as an advisor to the Welsh government on issues around violence against women, promising "to make Wales one of the safest places in Europe to be a woman." He often speaks and writes about how much depends on the undervalued leadership of women in small charities, working to combat gender-based problems and extremism in their own communities. In September 2018 he became Chair of the Corporation Board of Hopwood Hall College. Previous education positions included a Pro-Vice Chancellorship of the University of West London. He is Honorary Lecturer in law at University of Manchester and Pro-Chancellor at Brunel University, London. In August 2022 he will take up the role of
Chancellor Chancellor ( la, cancellarius) is a title of various official positions in the governments of many nations. The original chancellors were the of Roman courts of justice—ushers, who sat at the or lattice work screens of a basilica or law cou ...
of the University of Manchester, succeeding Lemn Sissay. In December 2018, Afzal contacted the police in relation to
English Defence League The English Defence League (EDL) is a far-right, Islamophobic organisation in the United Kingdom. A social movement and pressure group that employs street demonstrations as its main tactic, the EDL presents itself as a single-issue movement ...
founder Tommy Robinson's interview with the 16-year-old alleged perpetrator of assaults on Syrian refugees at
Almondbury Community School Hill View Academy (formerly Almondbury Community School) is a 3–11 mixed primary school with academy status in Almondbury, West Yorkshire, England. It is part of the Impact Education Multi Academy Trust. History In April 2014, the Kirklee ...
. Afzal stated that posting material naming the boy after he had been charged was an unlawful breech of reporting restrictions.


LGBT education in schools

In 2019,
Parkfield Community School Parkfield Community School is a primary school in Saltley, Birmingham, West Midlands, England. In 2013, it became an academy school, which means it receives its funding directly from the central rather than local government, in contrast with a ...
in Birmingham asked Afzal to mediate the issue on LGBT inclusive education. Some parents began protesting over the inclusion, fearing that adding lessons that include gay people were "promoting LGBT ways of life." The school argued that such education prevented homophobia. After analyzing the issue in depth, Afzal concluded that removing LGBT inclusion from education did “no service at all and no good at all." He also stated that school environments should be used “as somewhere they can learn things that they wouldn’t learn anywhere else”. He also warned that failing to teach children properly about sex and relationships could possibly lead to them being exploited by grooming gangs. Afzal stated that he feared some parents were being manipulated by outsiders with a different agenda. He said, "I have examined the curriculum myself and there is no specific LGBT content, no reference to gay sex, none at all - there is reference, as there should be, to equality."


Criticism of government cuts

Afzal has been an outspoken critic of government cuts to the Crown Prosecution Service and Ministry of Justice. He stated that a tipping point had been reached in 2015: cuts would lead to a reduction in the number of senior staff, which would force the junior staff members to do more and more with less resources while being under increasing scrutiny. He claimed the cuts were one of the reasons that he decided to leave the CPS. In 2019, he said the cuts and other lack of resources were responsible for a drastic fall in rape prosecutions and convictions, leading to him to conclude that rape has "effectively been decriminalised." In 2019 Afzal revealed that he had met with Boris Johnson in 2016, before he was prime minister. Afzal warned Johnson that government cutbacks meant that incarcerated terrorists were being released early; however, these individuals remained radicalised and thus were likely to commit acts of terror again. Afzal urged Johnson to increased funding for efforts to de-radicalise these prisoners, but he was told that such funding would not be available. Afzal revealed the conversation after Johnson, then as Prime Minister, criticized the policy of early release for terrorists in August 2019.


Honours and awards

Afzal was appointed an
Officer of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...
in the
2005 New Year Honours New Year Honours were granted in the United Kingdom and New Zealand at the start of 2005. Among these in the UK were knighthoods awarded to Mike Tomlinson, the educationalist; Derek Wanless, who led a review of the National Health Service; and ...
. The '' Manchester Evening News'' reported that Afzal had received the CPS Public Servant of the Year award, the UK Government's Justice Award and the '' Daily Mirror'' newspaper People's Award, the
Law Society A law society is an association of lawyers with a regulatory role that includes the right to supervise the training, qualifications, and conduct of lawyers. Where there is a distinction between barristers and solicitors, solicitors are regulated ...
/ Bar Council Mentoring award and was selected for the Asian Power 100, along with the
Muslim Power 100 ''Muslim Power 100'' is a 2007 list published by The Power 100 website compiled of the top 100 British Muslims who have contributed positively to the United Kingdom. Overview The Power 100 website compiled the ''Muslim Power'' list to recognise M ...
list. Afzal was appointed a Fellow of the
University of Central Lancashire , mottoeng = "From the Earth to the Sun" , established = as Institution for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledgere-established 1992 (University status granted) , type = Public , chancellor ...
in 2013 for "raising public awareness of domestic violence, forced marriage and 'honour' based crimes". In January 2013, Afzal was awarded the Services to Law award at the British Muslim Awards. He was named Legal Personality of the Year by the Society of Asian Lawyers. He received honorary doctorates in Law from the University of Birmingham in 2014, from the University of Manchester in 2017 and the University of Leicester in 2019.


Representations in popular culture

When he was director of the Crown Prosecution Service for London West, the TV
police procedural The police show, or police crime drama, is a subgenre of procedural drama and detective fiction that emphasizes the investigative procedure of a police officer or department as the protagonist(s), as contrasted with other genres that focus on eith ...
'' Law & Order: UK'' used him "for guidance on plot lines and realism" and designed the set to mimic his office. The BBC three-part drama '' Three Girls'', based on the Rochdale scandal, was broadcast on consecutive nights 16–18 May 2017 and featured the actor Ace Bhatti playing Afzal. He also served as a consultant on the series.


Personal life

Afzal has been married three times, which he describes humorously as "multifaith engagement": "First to an Irish Catholic, then to an Indian
Hindu Hindus (; ) are people who religiously adhere to Hinduism.Jeffery D. Long (2007), A Vision for Hinduism, IB Tauris, , pages 35–37 Historically, the term has also been used as a geographical, cultural, and later religious identifier for ...
and then to a British
Sikh Sikhs ( or ; pa, ਸਿੱਖ, ' ) are people who adhere to Sikhism, Sikhism (Sikhi), a Monotheism, monotheistic religion that originated in the late 15th century in the Punjab region of the Indian subcontinent, based on the revelation of Gu ...
." He has one daughter and three sons and is a practising Muslim. In May 2020, Afzal's brother died due to COVID-19, and UK rules meant Afzal was unable to go to the funeral. Afzal's memoir ''"The Prosecutor"'', published in April 2020, was described by
Richard Scorer Richard Scorer is a Principal Lawyer in Slater and Gordon Lawyers in Manchester where he is Head of Abuse Law. He was formerly Head of Serious Injury at Pannone LLP. He has represented abuse victims in cases against local authorities, schools ...
in the '' New Law Journal'' as "an inspiring account of the career of an outstanding public servant". Writing in '' The Sunday Times'', Rosamund Urwin called it a "fast-paced memoir" which "explores what led him to become a champion of the ignored".


See also

List of British Pakistanis


References


External links

* *
Interview. Full disclosure: The man who prosecuted the Rochdale grooming gang

Fuuse Voices - Video Profile: Nazir Afzal OBE

Nazir Afzal Part 1: Forced Marriage & Honour Killings (Honour Based Violence Awareness Network)

Nazir Afzal Part 2: Forced Marriage & Honour Killings.. (Honour Based Violence Awareness Network:)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Afzal, Nazir 1962 births Living people Activists against female genital mutilation English people of Pashtun descent English solicitors British Muslims People from Birmingham, West Midlands Alumni of the University of Birmingham British lawyers of Pakistani descent British feminists Violence against women in the United Kingdom Proponents of Islamic feminism British prosecutors Forced marriage Domestic violence awareness Police and crime commissioners in England British academics of Pakistani descent