Editorial Comment: Paul Senior-Last Words
| Author | Kevin Wong |
| Position | Co-editor |
| Pages | 5-6 |
5
British Journal of Community Justice
©2019 Manchester Metropolitan University
ISSN 1475-0279
Vol. 15(2) 5–6
EDITORIAL COMMENT: PAUL SENIOR – LAST WORDS
Kevin Wong, Co-editor
Back in March 2016, our journal published a tribute to Paul Senior titled An editor retires. It
was penned by Dav e Ward, Pau l’s long-time friend and colleague, who has been a solid
member of our journal’s editorial board since its commencement in 2002 to the presen t
day. In the editorial Dave recounted the considerable achievements that marked Paul’s long
and illustrious career as a probation practitioner, policy advocate and committed probation
academic. As the title suggests, the piece marked Paul’s retirement as co-editor of the
journal, which he had founded along with Dave and Brian Williams , their co-editor until
Brian’s untimely death.
It was with much sadness, but also a sense of inevitability, that the editorial board learnt
back in the summer that Paul had lost his battle with cancer. He passed away peacefully
with his family at his side. At Paul’s funeral, the constit uent parts of his full and energetic
life gathered to give him an emotional, funny and lively send-off: his family and friends; the
Tickhill Cricket Club, to which he was devoted; and representatives from academia and from
the world of probation – which mattered so much to him, and which he cherished and
argued so passionately for throughout his career.
Paul’s writing speaks for itself and for him, and can be found amongst the many back issues
of our journal from 2002 up to March 2016. They act perhaps as the finest memorial to him
and his passions. One of his best is hi s well-argued critique in 2013 of the then proposed
Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. As a colleague observed on hearing of Paul’s passing,
Paul lived long enough to be vindicated in his critique and to bear witness to the re-
publicisation of probation case management in England and Wales.
In these ‘last words’, all that it remains for me to do – as o ne of the current co-editors of
our journal – is to provide a personal view of Paul. I worked with him initially in 2009 as a
freelance research associate of the Hallam Centre for Community Justice (HCCJ). He was
generous enough to invite me to work with the c entre on tw o major evalu ations: of
Integrated Offender Management and Intensive Alternatives to Custody. The learning from
the evaluations of those two programmes is still relevant today. Later, I joined the centre
as the Deputy to Paul’s Director. Early on I recall going to a pitch for a research contract
with what was then the National Offender Management Service (NOMS). It was a rigorous
interview and we arrived at a p oint where one of the NOMS panel threw out a particularly
awkward question – one that we hadn’t thought of in our pre-pitch prep. My HCCJ
colleagues and I, on our side of the table, tipped our heads downwards – no ne of us were
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