Nazir Afzal OBE, was Chief Crown Prosecutor for NW England and formerly Director in London. Most recently, he was Chief Executive of the country’s Police & Crime Commissioners. During a 24 year career, has prosecuted some of the most high profile cases in the country and advised on many other and led nationally on several legal topics including Violence against Women & Girls, child sexual abuse, and honour based violence. He had responsibility for more than 100,000 other prosecutions each year. His prosecutions of the so called Rochdale grooming gang, BBC presenter Stuart Hall and hundreds of others were groundbreaking and drove the work that has changed the landscape of child protection. He is the Chair of Hopwood Hall. He was appointed to the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO). He is also National Adviser on Gender Based Violence to the Welsh Government. Most recently he joined the advisory board of Google’s Innovation Fund for counter-extremism.
Nazir is a tutor for several leadership programmes in the public and private sector. He has made presentations to dozens of diverse organisations in this country and abroad. He is on the European Union and Council of Europe list of expert speakers. He has given hundreds of interviews in all forms of media. Nazir gives a considerable amount of time to charitable work and is trustee & Patron of several NGOs including Jan Trust, Karma Nirvana, EngageMe, Halo Project & Savera and former Chair of the Prince of Wales’ Mosaic Trust. He is Pro Chancellor of Brunel University. He is an Honorary Fellow of the University of Central Lancashire, and awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Law by the University of Birmingham and this year an Honorary Doctorate by Manchester University. He assists the UN on rule of law, for example, he has chaired conferences in New York, Madrid, Norway and Geneva on various justice topics.
Nazir’s has received many accolades, in 2005, he was awarded an OBE by the Queen for his work with the CPS and involvement with local communities. He has also had the honour of being the only lawyer to ever prosecute a case before the Queen. In 2007, he was awarded the CPS’s Public Servant of the year, named Legal Personality of the Year by the Society of Asian Lawyers, the UK Government’s Justice Award 2007 and awarded the Daily Mirror newspaper “People’s award” voted for by readers. He was awarded the Law Society/Bar Council Mentoring award. Nazir was also selected for the Asian Power 100 along with the Muslim Power 100 list, recognised as one of the 100 most influential leading Muslims and Asians in the UK. He has been listed in the Pakistan Power100 which regards him as one of the 100 most influential people of Pakistani origin in the world today. Awarded the lifetime Achievement Award by the Power 100, and the British Muslim Award in 2013. He was Asian Media Group’s “Man of the Year 2012,” and the Asian Achievers Award 2014. The acclaimed BBC Film “Three Girls” was based on his case & featured Ace Bhatti playing him.
