Criminal Justice Partners

We have excellent links with local agencies and organisations in the criminal justice sector, including Greater Manchester Police, Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Courts, the Crown Prosecution Service, Salford Youth Offending Services, Greater Manchester Probation Trust, HMP Manchester, HMP Forest Bank, local defence solicitors and barristers, and Victim Support. Experienced practitioners from these organisations work with us in the classroom, on placements and field visits for students, and in research projects.

Below is a list of Criminal Justice Partners who currently work with us:

Chris Bridge – Detective Inspector, Greater Manchester Police

Chris has been a police officer for 23 years. He has served on the Bury and Oldham Police Divisions. He has mainly been involved in crime operations departments working predominantly in the CID, but also investigating volume crime, drugs offences, and death investigations. He has worked for four years on the Major Incident Team, primarily investigating murder and firearms offences across the Greater Manchester area. He is a PIP 3 Senior Investigating Officer, a nationally recognised qualification in Homicide investigation. He has also worked for the last four years in the Public Protection Department of the Greater Manchester Police, where he has had responsibility for the Serious Sexual Offence Unit and Public Protection Investigation Units. In that role, he managed investigations involving domestic abuse, adult and child safeguarding, child sexual exploitation and rape offences. For the past four years he has also been the Greater Manchester Police lead for the role of Family Liaison within homicide and major crime investigation. He also serves as Chair for the North West Region in terms of Family Liaison, leading on national pieces of work regarding welfare and training in the Family Liaison setting.

Steve Cotogni – Criminal Defence Solicitor

Steve has been a solicitor in private practice for over 20 years. Prior to this he worked for several years as a legal advisor in the Magistrates’ Courts. He has experience in all aspects of criminal defence work, including representing suspects at police stations and advocacy in the criminal courts. Steve is a member of the Legal Aid Agency’s Costs Appeals Committee and has also been a committee member of several local duty solicitor schemes. In 2011, he was appointed as an Honorary Fellow at the University of Salford, where he contributes to teaching on the Criminology degree and on Continuing Professional Development courses.

Lesley Daniels – Victims’ Advocate

Lesley joined Victim Support in 1991 as a Community Volunteer and stayed until 1997 visiting victims of all types of crime, including families bereaved by road death and homicide. In 1997, she became the Manager of Victim Support in Bolton. One of the first major tasks she had to do was build on the phenomenal work previously done to establish Victim Support within the criminal justice system. In 2000, Lesley became Deputy Chief Executive and shortly afterwards attained Chief Executive status. In 2007, Victim Support became a National Organisation and her role within this new structure was that of Divisional Manager of Greater Manchester. She sat as a full member on the Criminal Justice Board and was the Chair of the Victims & Witnesses subgroup from that board.

In June 2015 Lesley left Victim Support and became a freelance consultant reviewing services for victims; in particular, looking at criminal injury claims, identifying any resources agencies may require to enable them to inform/support victims to make their claims. She has also joined a small national charity “Enough Abuse”. Their aim is to educate parents, carers and professionals to identify children and young people who are at risk from harm or at risk of becoming an offender. EA work with numerous professionals to develop and deliver training, presently concentrating on schools, local authorities and police forces.

Phil East – Deputy Chief Executive, Salford Foundation

Phil East has worked for Salford Foundation (a social inclusion charity) since March 2009 and is the Deputy Chief Executive. He has been responsible for designing a number of the Foundation’s criminal justice projects, including a mentoring project for young offenders, projects for young people involved with OCG gangs and the ADAPT project which worked with 18-25 year olds who had served a custodial sentence. The latter was externally evaluated by ARCS Ltd and Salford University in 2014. He has senior management responsibility for a broad range of criminal justice projects including the Together Women Project (TWP) – part of Greater Manchester’s ‘whole system approach’ to female offenders; and the Foundation’s work in seven of the north west’s prisons. He has a particular interest in the voice and influence of people who have offended in co-designing services that effectively meet their needs. Phil previously worked for Local Authority Youth Services in the north west and south west of England and in the voluntary and community sector in Cheshire.

David Henthorne – Inspector Greater Manchester Police

Dave has been a Police Officer with GMP for over 18 years and currently works as an Inspector in Bolton, having spent 12 years in Salford and 5 years working in Bury.  He has spent 6 years in Neighbourhood Policing roles and had responsibility for policing delivery in Central Salford for over 4 years. Whilst in that post he focused on partnership and multi-agency working to address all aspects of crime and disorder- from anti-social behaviour, burglary and vehicle crime to disrupting Organised Crime Groups.

He is an experienced police public order commander having been involved in a number of large scale disorders, including the 2001 Bradford Riots in West Yorkshire, the UAFA Cup Final Riots in Manchester in 2007 and received a Chief Constables High Commendation for his role as a police commander during the disorder in Salford and Manchester in 2011. Following the riots he assisted the ‘Riots, Communities and Victims panel’ who were appointed by the Government to explore the underlying reasons nationally. Dave is part of GMP’s Stop Search working group which examines the organisation’s use of stop search, including issues of ethnic proportionality, data accuracy as well as methods to improve public confidence in stop search.

Trevor Laverock – Magistrate, Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Court (retired)

After graduating from Keele University in 1966, Trevor spent 32 years in the teaching profession. He taught Geography and Economics to ‘A’ level and finished his teaching career as a Deputy Head in a boys’ grammar school. After taking early retirement he became a magistrate and served on the Salford and then the Manchester and Salford Benches until 2014. He was a Chairman in both the Adult and Youth Courts and for five years was Deputy Chairman of the Youth Panel and a member of the Training and Development Committee. He was also Chairman of the Salford Magistrates’ Schools’ Project and co-ordinated a group of magistrates who visited primary schools in Salford to deliver a unique programme aimed at introducing Year 6 pupils to the Justice System.

Rachael Pavion – Legal Manager (Magistrates’ Courts), Crown Prosecution Service

Rachael started her legal career at Salford Magistrates’ Court in 2003 as a Legal Adviser. Following qualification as a solicitor in 2005, she stayed at Salford until 2009, when she moved to the Crown Prosecution Service as a Senior Crown Prosecutor.  She has been involved in charging numerous serious cases including murders, conspiracies to pervert the course of justice, fatal road traffic cases, drug operations and fraud matters, whilst regularly appearing at Manchester City Magistrates to prosecute trials and remand hearings. In July 2013, Rachael successfully applied for a position as a Legal Manager, and with two other Managers was responsible for performance across all the Magistrates’ Courts in Greater Manchester. She managed a team of 18 lawyers and was regularly involved in delivering training to staff. In June 2016 she successfully applied for a 12 month secondment to the Strategy, Policy and Accountability Unit in Private Office and is currently working on the Goddard Inquiry.

Steve Retford – Detective Sergeant (retired) and Nationally Accredited Interview Advisor, Greater Manchester Police

Steve is a retired Detective Sergeant having worked in law enforcement for 33 years, 29 of which was as an operational detective.  In this time, he worked on the full range of investigations encompassing volume crime to the high end serious and complex investigations involving homicides, organised crime and terrorist related enquires.  In terms of training, Steve has significant experience in both course curriculum design and delivery, which is underpinned by his extensive operational experience in the field, which is still current as he continues to be a practitioner, fulfilling a role as a nationally accredited interview advisor with GMP.  This role deals with the investigative interviewing and coordination of victims, witnesses and suspects within his force and the North West region of the country.

In terms of qualifications, Steve holds a Certificate in Education with Manchester University, he is also a nationally accredited assessor, and is just finishing his Masters (MA) in Investigation Management with Sunderland University.   Steve enjoys working with a network of academics and institutions, who he assists with research projects associated to his working practices.  He also lectures on issues related to investigation and interviewing practice.

Ben Southam

Ben Southam began his legal career as a Court Clerk at Bury Magistrates’ Court.  He qualified as a solicitor in 1997 and joined the CPS as a Crown Prosecutor at the Oldham office in 1998.  Until 2008 he worked at the Oldham and Tameside offices dealing with varied casework and became a PYO and youth specialist.  He joined the Complex Casework Unit in 2008 and has dealt with numerous complex cases such as multi-million pound drugs conspiracies, fraud and money laundering.  His two most high-profile cases were the murder of Anuj Bidve by Kieran “Psycho” Stapleton and the poisoning by Victorino Chua of 20 patients at Stepping Hill hospital.  In April 2015 he became Deputy Head of the Complex Casework Unit.

Andy Tattersall – Senior Investigating Officer, Greater Manchester Police (retired)

Andy Tattersall, former head of Salford CID and Detective Superintendent in the Greater Manchester Police on the Force Major Incident Team, retired in 2007 after 33 years service and became the first ever Support Staff SIO in charge of a new Homicide Investigation Unit. A career detective with over 29 years in CID at all ranks, Andy is recognised both locally and nationally as one of the most experienced homicide investigators in the UK, holding the position of Senior Investigating Officer for  thirteen years. He has led over 300 murder investigations, including gangland shootings, child homicides, hospital deaths, no-body murders and the prosecution of terrorist Kamal Bourgass for the murder of Special Branch Detective Stephen Oake in 2003.

 In 2000 Andy was part of a select Specialist Advisory Team, created to assist the Metropolitan Police with the murder investigation of Jill Dando. He received the Association of Chief Police Officer’s, Homicide Working Group, National Award for his Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Homicide in November 2006. For the past five years Andy has assisted in the instruction of homicide detectives from across the country at the National Training centre in Cambridge. He is the co-author of the Blackstone’s Senior Investigating Officer’s Handbook, published by Oxford University Press in 2008, which is now used by all UK Police forces.

Andy Sokill – Magistrate, Manchester and Salford Magistrates’ Courts

Andy has been a local magistrate since 1993 and is a member of the Independent Monitoring Board at Styal prison. An Oxford history graduate, he started in journalism on the Whitley Bay Guardian but has since worked for the Daily Express, Daily Mail, Manchester Evening News and the BBC.

He hates doctors, caravans and mulled wine but enjoys puns, pints and long train journeys.

Ian Whiteside – Director HMP & YOI Bronzefield

Ian Whiteside joined Sodexo Justice Services in 1993 at HMP Blakenhurst. In 2000, Ian moved to HMP Forest Bank, a category B prison in Greater Manchester that currently holds up to 1460 male prisoners over the age of 18. In 2004 Ian completed a secondment to HMP Bronzefield, a female prison in Middlesex as the Head of Operations and Security. He also assisted in the opening of HMP Peterborough, the country’s only dual purpose-built prison for men and women.

In recent years Ian has also worked on a number of business development projects including the successful bid for the management of HMP Northumberland.  Ian has considerable experience of international working, in 2015 he was the operational lead for a successful bid for the management of the Women’s Remand and Resettlement Facility in Perth Western Australia. He has also worked in Ghent Belgium assisting with the design of a joint  male and female prison.  Ian has also lectured at the International Corrections and Prisons Association (ICPA) at Ghent University Belgium and at the University of Tampere Finland. Both lectures were on the topic of prisoner financial exclusion.

Ian is currently the Director of HMP & YOI Bronzefield, Europe’s largest female prison.

Ian holds a postgraduate diploma and a Master’s Degree of Studies from the University of Cambridge in Applied Criminology, Penology and Management.

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