We must improve justice system, says High Sheriff

THE new High Sheriff of Oxfordshire says she wants to champion unsung heroes during her year of office.

Sylvia Jay also plans to highlight problems in the justice system by organising a series of lectures.

The former civil servant, who lives with her husband, a retired diplomat, in Ewelme, will take up the post officially at a ceremony at Oxford Crown Court on Tuesday.

Lady Jay was nominated for the role by former high sheriff Tom Birch Reynardson, whom she had met, in 2015.

“I felt very flattered, of course, but I didn’t really know much about it,” she says.

“I’m very excited because it’s an opportunity to find out about all the good things that are going on in Oxfordshire and some of the difficulties as well.

“Many people have had no civic recognition in the form of an honour but they have all done these amazing things for years. It’s a real privilege to find out about that work and really heartwarming.

“All these unsung heroes play a huge part in making our community viable. It’s also an opportunity to see new opportunities for community integration.”

High sheriff is the oldest secular office in the UK, apart from the Crown, and dates from Saxon times when the Shires were formed.

Initially high sheriffs acted as judges and collected taxes, levies and dues on Crown land.

Such was the unpopularity of their duties that many of those who were nominated for the job tried to avoid taking it.

As a result, the practice of “pricking” the name of the chosen high sheriff with a bodkin on a sheet of vellum came into being, probably around 1400s. A hole in the vellum could not be repaired or removed.

The monarch still carries out this practice.

There has been a high sheriff from Ewelme before — Thomas Chaucer, son of the author and poet Geoffrey, whose tomb is in Ewelme church.

Today, the high sheriff is chosen by committee, usually comprising the Lord Lieutenant of Oxfordshire, at least one deputy lieutenant, the county’s bishop or bishops, the chief constable and the current high sheriff.

Duties include participating in civic and community events and functions, offering encouragement to those engaged in supporting the voluntary sector and those most in need, pursuing themes and initiatives which bring communities together and benefit the social fabric of the county and ensuring the wellbeing of High Court judges when in Oxfordshire.

Lady Jay says: “There’s a lot to be said for tradition as long as it evolves.

“Some high sheriffs do a great deal of very worthwhile fundraising. I’m not a clever fundraiser so I thought I would try to raise awareness of difficulties in our justice system, in particular our prison service and probation service.

“I’ve always volunteered in prisons. As a student I went to America and worked in a correctional institution in Kentucky for the Quakers. When I went to London as a student I prison-visited in Holloway, Belmarsh, Wandsworth and Brixton.”

Lady Jay also prison-visited Fleury-Merogis Prison in France where she met women serving sentences for acting as drug mules.

She was inspired by the work of prison and social reformer Elizabeth Fry.

She says: “She was a Quaker and she thought it was often unjust to separate women from their families when often what they were put in prison for was, in her view, trivial and almost unavoidable, like stealing some money to buy food for children. That was always at the back of my mind.

“What is fair and isn’t fair is important and it struck me as a fundamentally important thing that society had to try do something about it.

“The main concern is that society should have a justice system that works and, although my role is not at all political, no one can be unaware of the problems in finding enough judges and the problems in the probation service which have been partially transferred to the private sector.

“The main statistic that always sticks in my mind is two thirds of people coming out of prison are back in within about two years.

“We don’t seem to have got that right and in an awful lot of cases prison isn’t rehabilitating people to resume their roles in society.

“It costs about £70,000 a year to keep someone in prison, just a normal prison. I’m not saying prison isn’t the best place but it doesn’t look as if it’s working for rehabilitation. There are some good examples, of course.”

Lady Jay says she left the Quakers in her late twenties and returned to the Church of England because “I missed the singing!”

Her chosen charities for the year are Aspire Oxford, which helps former prisoners find homes and work, Fine Cell Work, which teaches needlework skills to prisoners, mostly men, Crisis and The Arts in Oxford, which help homeless and other vulnerable people find homes, new skills and jobs, and the Institute of Food, Brain and Behaviour in Oxford.

Money will be raised for the charities at the lectures.

Lady Jay, who has lived in Ewelme for more than 20 years, also plans to host a party on the village playing field on August 24 to thank residents.

She said: “We knew Ewelme as we spent our honeymoon in a little cottage rented by my husband’s uncle on the Hicks estate in Britwell Salome. We walked all around, including to Ewelme.”

She joined the civil service in 1971 and worked for the Ministry of Overseas Development on and off until resigning when her husband was appointed British ambassador to France in 1996.

She also worked for the Civil Service Commission to help recruit graduate entrants into the service and the French treasury.

In 1989 she helped set up the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The bank, which opened in 1991, was established following the collapse of communism in the East to help build a new, post-Cold War era in Central and Eastern Europe.

It has invested more than 130 billion euros in a total of more than 5,200 projects.

When her husband took up his appointment Lady Jay moved to Paris with him.

She says: “My husband would be the first to say he doesn’t do a great deal of domestic management so he delegated to me the running of the household.

“There was a chef and his team and a housekeeper and her team, two social secretaries, an accountant, maids and a butler and his team.

“I organised that and made sure people had adequate job descriptions and helped ensure the household ran very well for all the guests because we entertained 12,000 to 14,000 a year.

“In those days we had nine guest bedrooms and well over 1,000 people a year came to stay — official guests. It was quite a hands-on role.”

She entered the private sector on her return from France in 2001 as director general of the UK Food and Drink Federation.

She restructured the organisation and revised its membership so that then very small companies, like Duchy Originals and Rachel’s Organic, joined as well as larger firms like Sainsbury’s and Compass.

She was vice-chairman and then chairman of L’Oreal UK from 2005 to 2013.

Her husband became head of the foreign office in 2002, retiring in 2006, and now sits as a cross-bencher in the House of Lords.

Lady Jay also served as a non-executive director of a number of large companies and continues to be on the boards of Lazard, a financial advisory and asset management firm, and the Casino Supermarket Group.

Her voluntary work has mainly been to do with prison reform and the Pilgrim Trust, which she chaired from 2005 for 10 years, as well as the conservation of churches.

She was made a CBE in 2005 and a Chevalier of the Legion d’Honneur in 2008.