Our Board

Colin is Chair of our Board of Trustees.  He is a Professor of Mental Health and Capacity Law at Edinburgh Napier University. He is on the Executive team of the current review of Scottish mental health law.

From 2014-2020 he was Chief Executive of the Mental Welfare Commission. The Commission is a statutory agency responsible for protecting the human rights of people with mental illness, learning disabilities, dementia and related conditions.

Previously Colin worked in the Scottish Government for 14 years, working on areas including mental health law, strategy and public service reform. For several years he had responsibility for civil justice policy, including legal aid and court reform. Before that he was a solicitor, and spent 10 years with ENABLE Scotland, where he led campaigning and policy work, established the ENABLE Trustee Service, and served as a Mental Welfare Commissioner for 2 years.

Beth Anderson is our Treasurer, and has 30 years’ experience in the finance sector working in a variety of roles for charities such as Turning Point Scotland, Richmond Fellowship, Legal Services Agency and Quarriers.

Beth now works at Molendinar Park Housing Association as a Finance Officer.

Beth is a Qualified Law Accountant and a member of the Society of Law Accountants Scotland.

Annika is Chief Executive of Safe in Scotland (formerly Glasgow Night Shelter for Destitute Asylum Seekers), a human rights charity that develops and delivers safe, dignified accommodation and trauma-informed support for people experiencing asylum-related destitution. She is also an active voice in advocating for the policy and legislative changes that would mean the organisation is no longer required!

Her professional background is in the development of museums and galleries that actively address their institutional history and practice of exclusion and exclusivity.

Katharine is an Associate Professor in International Migration in the Centre for Trust, Peace and Social Relations at Coventry University.

Working virtually from her home in Glasgow, she has been conducting advocacy-related migration research for over 20 years for the UN, NGOs and grant-making foundations. Katharine specialises in writing about employment rights for migrants, trafficking and forced labour, and business and human rights.

She is motivated by a passion for challenging the accelerating global precarity of migration. Katharine also serves as a Trustee for A Moment’s Peace, a socially engaged theatre company producing art, activism and solidarity; and for Bazooka Arts, which provides therapeutic arts for children and adults.

Lindsey is Law and Policy Manager for Scotland at Amnesty UK. She also sits as a Legal Convener to the Mental Health Tribunal for Scotland.

Prior to joining the Amnesty, Lindsey was a Senior Solicitor at the Equality and Human Rights Commission.  She has also worked at a national law centre in Scotland for over ten years, gaining experience in a range of areas of civil practice including mental health, refugee and asylum, discrimination, public law/ judicial review and housing/ homelessness.

Lindsey has an interest in legal education. She has a Masters degree in Human Rights Law and teaches human rights on the diploma in legal practice at the University of Glasgow.

Mahlea is the London Project Manager at the Migrants’ Rights Network. She works across policy, advocacy, research, and network development to create a just society for all migrants. She advises on the Greater London Authority’s Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Board, the Migrants, Refugees, and Asylum Panel, and the No Recourse to Public Funds steering group.

Mahlea is also in the final stages of a PhD at the University of Edinburgh. Her thesis focuses on reframing the anti-human trafficking narrative through the perspective of migration policy reform.

Her professional background includes having previously worked across 30+ countries on combating the issue of sexual and labour exploitation, gaining experience especially in program development and strategy.

Maria is Senior Lecturer in European Law and Deputy Head of the School of Law at the University of Glasgow. She teaches and researches EU law, with a particular focus on the fields of migration, citizenship and criminal Justice and a particular interest in nurturing and producing impact through collaborative civic engagement.

She is on the Steering Group of the University of Glasgow’s Refugee Asylum and Migration Network (GRAMNet) and the Director of the Scottish Universities Legal Network on Europe (SULNE).

Maria is currently leading a collaborative project to mark the 2019 centenary of women in law and is working with Human Rights Consortium Scotland to inform, support and advise civil society organisations in Scotland about the impacts of Brexit. She has experience of governance in charitable sector through her previous campaigning and chairing role with a Glasgow community centre.

Zeno is a senior associate and lawyer working in Arnold & Porter’s antitrust group. He enjoys providing practical solutions to complex regulatory issues. He advises clients on UK and EU competition law and also maintains an active pro bono practice advising individuals, charities and NGOs.

As a member of his firm’s DEI and CSR Steering Group, Zeno represents the London office’s diversity and equality initiatives. Zeno is also a trustee and non-executive director for the Birkbeck Students’ Union, a registered charity, having first taken up this role in 2018 and recently being re-elected for another term.

A passion for diversity, inclusion, equity, and accessibility in the profession inspires his work. 

Sophie works in the governance department at SEPA, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency, and currently provides support to the Corporate Leadership Team and Agency Board.

Sophie previously completed a Young Leaders programme with the 2050 Climate Group and was SEPA’s lead on its Sustainable Growth Agreement with the Group.

Sophie is also a workplace union steward and women’s officer and is working to further women’s rights in the workplace by developing a gender-based violence policy collaboratively with SEPA’s HR department. 

Sam  is Head of the UK National Preventive Mechanism, a group of 21 organisations which inspect and monitor places of detention in the United Kingdom. Prior to this he was Human Rights Lead and Inspector for His Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons Scotland, where he led on the application of human rights standards in the scrutiny work of the inspectorate.

Passionate and aspirational about human rights, Sam also sits on the Leadership Panel for Scotland’s National Action Plan for Human Rights, helping to develop and direct practical actions to improve the realisation of human rights in Scotland. Sam has previously worked in research, law, and arts & culture.

He holds an LLB (Hons.) and an LLM (Human Rights) from the University of Edinburgh.  

Annie is a Detective Constable. She joined the police on an accelerated programme and now works as an investigator on complex and protracted rape and serious sexual offence investigations.

Her work involves supporting victims in vulnerable situations and building cases for court trials. Annie sits on her police force’s board on Men’s Violence Against Women and Girls, which operates to improve victims’ experiences.

Outside of her police work, Annie has a passion for and is involved in campaigning to improve victims’ experiences of crime, from reporting to taking court action. 

Anisha is a strategy consultant who has worked with large clients and major programmes since 2016.

Her skills and experience are centred on helping organisations develop new strategic visions and plans, operating models, and implementation pathways, and exploring how strategy can be used to achieve sustainable development for businesses and societies.

Anisha is currently working on a masters degree in global strategy and sustainability at the University of Edinburgh, and is interested in exploring global and local environmental rights in the context of the movement for climate justice. 

Fayaz is originally from Kenya, and holds Bachelor’s degrees in Psychology and Religion (University of Florida), a Master’s in Social Anthropology (University College London), and a PhD in Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies (University of Edinburgh).

Fayaz is a Research Associate at The Institute of Ismaili Studies (IIS) where he heads the Ismaili Heritage Project, a tripartite collaboration between IIS (London), the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (Geneva), and institutions of the Ismaili community (Lisbon).

He also serves as a Trustee of Bruntsfield St. Oswald’s (St. Oswald’s Centre), a Community Asset Transfer where he leads fundraising and communication efforts, as well as of the Edinburgh Iranian Festival, which aims to increase the understanding of Iran’s culture, history, and people to audiences in Scotland.