This website is dedicated to

Sir Stephen Tumim

A PERSONAL TRIBUTE

By Mark Leech,
Editor of The Prisons Handbook

There can be no dispute that the appointment of Sir Stephen Tumim as the Chief Inspector of Prisons in 1987 instantly stepped the hitherto back-bench Prisons Inspectorate right up to the Dispatch Box of penal affairs; how many, I wonder, can name his predecessor, much less the one before that?

I was languishing in Dartmoor prison at the time and had never heard of Stephen Tumim, in fact the Prisons Inspectorate itself at the time was a body shrouded in a cloak of darkness - but things were about to change. From his very first report he catigated the prison authorities for the disgraceful practice of 'slopping out' and he never missed an opportunity of making his case for its abolition until the very last chamber pot was thrown away six years later: "It's vital to keep rattling the gates" he told me later, and I've followed his advice ever since!

I met him many times both socially and in a professional capacity and marvelled at this man who seemed to present an old squire figure yet beneath it resided a razor sharp mind and a determination to win the hearts and minds of others.

One day early in 1997 I was watching the television over breakfast as the then Home Secretary Michael Howard was thundering away about how 'prison works' (my TV was regularly covered in muesli as a result of my exasperation) when Stephen Tumim was interviewed and remarked, "We ought to ask the prisoners what they think of our prisons" - so was born the idea for UNLOCK - the National Association of Ex-Offenders that I started with Stephen Fry and Bob Turney a year later, and of which until his death in December 2003 Stephen Tumim remained its formidible and championing President.

I shall miss Stephen Tumim, he had a few misguided critics who never quite understood the humane, reforming, and pioneering man that I had the privilege to know - but there are many more who have good things to say about him; and I believe people will continue to have good things to say about Stephen Tumim, long after his misinformed detractors have been forgotten.

Click Here for [The Guardian Obituary]