Founded 1980
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Graham Smith
Jan Thompson
Graham Mumby-Croft


John Berry
 Issue No. 79 Autumn 2018
THE THINGS YOU FIND IN CUPBOARDS

I was in the Family Court and we had just finished for lunch. I decided to stay in and eat my lunch rather than go out for a walk. Opening my briefcase I found I had forgotten to put my book in and so I looked around in the cupboards and found a stack of old Justice of the Peace Magazines from 2000 2007. Grabbing one, I sat down and began to flick through it and lo and behold I found an article by Peter Quinn.

Whilst I never had the pleasure of working with Peter in a prison, I did spend some time with him when he was in HQ redrafting parts of the Prison Rules. To this day I still blame him for changing rule 43 to rule 45. However, when Peter retired he went off to pastures new and became a Visiting Fellow at the Faculty of Law University of the West of England and was a Trustee of the charity Prisoners Abroad.

Apparently Peter had decided to extend his range of skills and apply for a post on the Probation Board – a bit like the Prisons Board but probably less formal! Now that would have been in the days when we only had one National Probation Service that was in general pretty successful rather than the mishmash of private and public services today which leaves a lot to be desired.

Peter then described in great detail how he tried (with the aid of a Pimms or two) to get a copy of the application form. Eventually after several misaddressed forms, one duly arrived and Peter duly sat down to complete it. Having expended a huge amount of cerebral energy in meeting the job spec. he tried to fax the form back as it was the final day for receipt of applications. Apparently he was then told they did not accept Fax applications and as Peter accordingly noted – that is why he was never appointed as a member of the Probation Board.

Still, as he observed it would probably have interfered with his cricket – watching not playing. If Peter wants a copy of this article then if he gets in contact with me I can always email (or fax it to him).

Lunch over then I went back to work in the Court – still thinking of Peter and his change of Rule 43. 

John Berry