Returning to Regent‘s

Professor Sir Malcolm

Few things seem to surprise me more than what comes next. I do not really ever recall when, or why, I decided to study Law at university. It just happened. Indeed, I may not have been the one who made the decision at all. Certainly, my school was not too keen on it: I was advised not to apply to university at all, as it would probably ‘end in disappointment.’ Most of my friends followed the similar advice that they were given. But there is nothing like being told you cannot do something to make you want to do it – so I did apply and, to rub it in, I applied to Oxford. Through life’s alchemy, I found myself at Regent’s in the autumn of 1979, starting a degree in Jurisprudence. This did not go well, or so I thought. Whilst I was ‘getting by’, I did not think Law was for me but, having started, I finished. And I shall never forget the words spoken to me by my tutor, at University College, when hearing that I had achieved a First, which were ‘I take it you have heard about this shock to my system.’

His shock was nothing to mine. I had decided not to pursue a career in law at all and started working for a Bank in the City of London, which I duly did – along with three other trainees, one from Keble and two from St Benet’s. A year later, knowing that banking was not for me either, I found myself back at Regent’s, commencing a DPhil, focusing on International Law, largely as it was the only area of law that had really interested me. And it still does. My thesis concerned the delimitation of maritime boundaries. I will not expect readers to be as excited about the topic as I was then and still am now – though I am more than happy to hold forth on the subject at length if asked. It seemed my study of Law at Regent’s had gone slightly better than I first had thought.

College life at Regent’s had gone well from the start, however. Never having been interested in anything remotely sporting before, I found myself drafted into rowing. By the time I finished my DPhil, I had amassed three blades (two Torpids, one Eights), been Captain of Boats for two years, sunk one boat and raised the money to buy another, and put out the first ever Regent’s women’s crew on the river (in a year when the men also had a Regent’s I and II for the first time). I was also JCR Treasurer and later JCR President too. Of the latter, there is still proof on the board in the JCR. Another thing that went well was meeting Alison whilst she was training for the Baptist ministry at Regent’s. A Baptist myself, we were married at New Road Baptist Church, where we lived above REGENT’S NOW COLLEGE LIFE the coffee shop until we left for Cardiff and Alison’s first church. Not that we planned to go to Cardiff: indeed, it was the one place we thought we did not want to go to. Alison had already studied for her undergraduate degree and PhD there, and it was where I was from. Importantly, Cardiff is not all that far from Bristol, where I was offered a position as a lecturer in the Law School in 1988 and where I remained for 34 years, though some might question that assertion.

During my time at Bristol, I became Head of the Law School and then Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Law, the largest in the University. I also found myself moving into other branches of international law and in particular international human rights law. Like most things, this was somewhat accidental and largely the result of being asked to establish a course teaching it. I came to focus on two areas, the international protection of the freedom of religion or belief and the prevention of torture. (I was once introduced to an audience as specialising in ‘torture preventing religious freedom’ – a rather unfortunate as well as inaccurate conflation). For ten years I worked as an independent expert with the Organisation on Security and Co-operation in Europe looking at laws relating to the organisation and regulation of religion in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, as well as with other national and international organisations. I also became heavily involved in a number of initiatives concerning the teaching of religion or belief in schools.

...the ‘real world’ needs all the wisdom that can be derived from the learning that universities generate.

NGO work and, in 2009, I was nominated for election to a United Nations group of experts, oddly called the ‘Subcommittee on Prevention of Torture’ (odd, because it was not a subcommittee of anything - but that’s the UN for you!) and of which I became Chair for ten years, until the end of 2020. Its job was to visit places of detention in various countries around the world, without giving notice, to speak with detainees and examine their treatment, and to try to ensure they were not at risk of torture or illtreatment. We produced reports and made recommendations for improvement, which we worked with governments to implement. Much of the work was (and is still) confidential but it is true to say I have seen the inside of at least some of the worst places that it is possible to imagine, and some of the worst things that people can do to each other. It is fair to say that I never imagined I should ever be doing such things.

Nor did I ever imagine that, because of my background in seeking to prevent abuse in closed institutions, I should be asked to become one of the four Panel Members of the public inquiry concerning institutional responses to child sexual abuse in England and Wales, then the largest and most wide-ranging public inquiry ever undertaken. This has recently concluded, having produced over 20 separate investigation reports over nearly seven years, involved of 2.5 million pages of evidence, having heard from thousands of victims of child sexual abuse and examining how this has been responded to by local authorities, the police, schools, religious organisations, youth custodial institutions, as well as issues concerning child sexual exploitation, the internet, accountability and reparations, and much else besides. Many of our recommendations have already been implemented and I will be watching long and hard to see what happens to those set out in our final report.

Throughout all this, I have continued my academic work, since it is inseparable from all else that I have done. I have never believed that universities are not a part of the ‘real world’, and a fervently believe that the ‘real world’ needs all the wisdom that can be derived from the learning that universities generate. Everything in my career has started with the university and has been taken back to the university. And taking that one stage further, everything I have done has started with Regent’s – and has now brought me back to Regent’s. Not that I have been entirely absent since I graduated: I have been on College Council and Governing Body for many years and was Chair of Governing Body too. So in some ways, I have never really left the College; but then, few of us ever do. We carry it with us into whatever comes next, whatever that is. The real surprise is that the next thing for me is to return as Principal - another thing that I did not see coming until it arrived.

I am not going to begin to predict what surprises this new future will bring for me, for the College, and for the College community. Doubtless, there will be some surprises – there always are. What I am sure of is that surprises bring opportunities, and I am excited at the prospect of the opportunities that lie ahead. The College has changed and developed greatly in many ways over the years in which I have known it, which is as it should be. Helping take the College into the next phase of its story will be yet another privilege I could never have imagined.