Honorary Fellows 2012

Jamie Carragher

For outstanding contribution to sport and charity

Jamie was born and grew up in Bootle, Merseyside. Before his retirement he was the Vice-Captain of Liverpool Football Club (LFC) and one of the club’s longest-serving players. His involvement with the club started at 16 with the LFC youth team and he made his professional debut in 1997. During his career the team won several titles including the FA Cup, League Cup, UEFA Cup and the Champions League. 

In 2006, due to his regular contributions to charity, Jamie was awarded the Freedom of Sefton. Three years later he decided to set up his own charity, the 23 Foundation, which aims to make a difference in society by giving children and young people in Merseyside a chance to achieve their dreams, whether it be helping them to recover from illness or providing a framework to enable them to reach their goals.

Read the oration for Jamie Carragher.

Steve Collett

For outstanding contribution to criminal justice services

Steve was appointed Chief Officer of Cheshire Probation Area in 2001 and retired in 2010 after beginning his career as a probation assistant in Bootle, Merseyside, in 1974. After qualifying in social work in 1977 he worked in a variety of roles within Merseyside and Greater Manchester probation services. 

In the early 1980s Steve taught social work and social policy before taking up a joint appointment with Merseyside Probation and the University of Liverpool. He chaired the Cheshire Criminal Justice Board from 2004 to 2007 and became a founding Vice-Chair of the Probation Chiefs’ Association. 

He has maintained a 20-year commitment to the Probation Journal through his membership of its Editorial Board and has written on a variety of criminal justice and social policy issues for peer-reviewed journals. He was also a trustee of the Liverpool Simon Community, a local homelessness charity.

Read the oration for Steve Collett.

David Greenaway

For outstanding contribution to higher education

Professor Greenaway is Vice-Chancellor of the University of Nottingham and an alumnus of Liverpool Polytechnic. A Professor of Economics, he was previously a Pro-Vice-Chancellor, and founding Director of the University of Nottingham’s Leverhulme Centre for Research on Globalisation and Economic Policy. He is currently a Member of the Government’s Asia Task Force and a Deputy Lieutenant of Nottinghamshire. 

His previous roles include Chairman of the Armed Forces Pay Review Body; Member of the Senior Salaries Review Body; consultant to the World Bank, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Commission, the United Nations, General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and HM Treasury; Chair of the Economics and Econometrics Panel for the UK Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) in 2001 and 2008; Member of the Council of the UK Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Non- Executive Director of the Nottingham Health Authority and Queens Medical Centre Hospital Trust.

Read the oration for Professor David Greenaway.

Jane Greenwood

For outstanding contribution to the field of costume design and innovative work with the arts

Jane is a costume designer for stage, television and fi Born in Liverpool, she attended LJMU’s School of Art and Design (then the Liverpool School of Art) and went on to the Central School of Arts and Crafts (now Central St Martins College of Art and Design).

Jane’s work includes designing for more than 150 productions in New York, accumulating more than 50 years of designing on Broadway. Her credits include Ballad of the Sad Cafe, Hamlet with Richard Burton and Steven Sondheim’s musical Passion

Jane has been a professor of Costume Design at Yale School of Drama since 1976. Her accolades include 18 Tony nominations, the Irene Sharaff Lifetime Achievement Award, the Helen Hayes Award, the Drama Desk Award and the Lucille Lortel Award for Distinguished Work in the Theatre. In 2003 she was elected to the Theatre Hall of Fame and in 2014 she was awarded the Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in Theatre.

Read the oration for Jane Greenwood.

Gerry Kinsella MBE

For services to sport and creating opportunities for disabled athletes

Gerry is the Chief Executive of Greenbank, a Liverpool-based Charity which focuses on creating opportunities and enhancing the status of disabled and disadvantaged people through education, training, employment, sport and recreation. He is a former Paralympian and a passionate advocate for disability sport. 

His sporting career includes the 1967 International Stoke Mandeville Games, the 1968 Paralympic games in Israel and the Germany and Canada Games, where he secured Paralympic Bronze in swimming and track. 

Gerry won seven Golds at the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand and Scotland and went on to achieve Gold in three World Basketball Championships and numerous Golds at Stoke Mandeville International Games in Pentathlon and Table Tennis. He received an MBE in 1991 for his success at Greenbank.

Read the oration for Gerry Kinsella.

Mick Laverty

For outstanding contribution to UK regeneration

Mick is the Chief Executive of the Student Loans Company and an alumnus of Liverpool Polytechnic. From 2007 to 2012 he was Chief Executive at Advantage West Midlands (AWM), where he was responsible for overseeing 2,500 projects and programmes. 

He played a leading role in major transformational schemes in the region, including the redevelopment of New Street Station, Eastside and Longbridge in Birmingham; Ansty Park in Coventry, home to the national manufacturing technology centre and i54 in Wolverhampton, home to Jaguar Land Rover’s new engine plant.

Additionally, he led the development of the West Midlands’ first two economic strategies in 2001 and 2004 and oversaw the development of the Agency’s access to finance work. Under his leadership AWM was rated as the best performing Regional Development Agency by the National Audit Office.

Read the oration for Mick Laverty.

Sir Brian Leveson

For outstanding contribution to the legal profession

Sir Brian Leveson is Liverpool born and bred. Educated at Liverpool College and Merton College, Oxford, he was called to the Bar by Middle Temple in 1970 and practised on the Northern Circuit from chambers in Liverpool. He was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1986 and was a Recorder and a Deputy High Court Judge. In 2000 he was knighted, appointed a Judge of the High Court, Queen’s Bench Division and served as a Presiding Judge of the Northern Circuit. 

In 2005 he was appointed to the new position of Deputy Senior Presiding Judge. A year later, following his appointment as a Lord Justice of Appeal, he became Senior Presiding Judge for England and Wales. In 2009 he was appointed Chairman of the Sentencing Council. Sir Brian was appointed as Chairman of the Inquiry investigating the role of the press and police in the phone-hacking scandal in 2011. He was installed as Chancellor of LJMU in 2013.

Read the oration for Sir Brian Leveson.

Vasily Petrenko

For outstanding contributions to Liverpool and the arts

Vasily started his music education at St Petersburg Capella Boys Music School, the oldest music school in Russia, and then studied at the St Petersburg Conservatoire.

He was appointed Principal Conductor of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (RLPO) in September 2006; in September 2009 he became Chief Conductor. 

He was appointed Principal Conductor of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain in the same year, and became Principal Conductor Designate of the Oslo Symphony in 2013.

He has also made numerous critically-acclaimed debuts with major international orchestras. Recordings with the RLPO include Tchaikovsky’s Manfred Symphony, the 2009 Gramophone Awards Orchestral Recording of the Year, and an on-going cycle of Shostakovich symphonies of which No.10 was the 2011 Gramophone Awards Orchestral Recording of the Year. Vasily was the Classical BRIT Awards Male Artist of the Year 2010, and the 2007 Gramophone Awards Young Artist of the Year.

Lance Corporal Alan Redford

For outstanding bravery and service to the people of the UK

In 2011, Lance Corporal Alan Redford was awarded the Military Cross by the Queen for his bravery and repeated acts of courage in Afghanistan. Born in Birkenhead, and a father of three, he received this prestigious Army honour after he twice saved Allied lives while on tour as part of the 1st Battalion, the Mercian Regiment, which is based at Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire. 

During his time in the army Alan also toured Iraq, Northern Ireland and the Falklands.

Read the oration for Lance Corporal Alan Redford.

Beth Tweddle MBE

For outstanding contribution to sport

Beth graduated from LJMU in 2007 and is the UK’s most successful gymnast. She has competed in three Olympics, finishing just outside the medals in Athens and Beijing. In the London 2012 Olympic Games she won Bronze in the uneven bars in front of a home crowd. Beth started gymnastics when she was seven years old and was ranked second in the country within 18 months. 

She was the first British woman to win medals at the World Championships, securing the asymmetric bars title in 2006 and the floor title in 2009. She also holds Commonwealth Gold plus a plethora of European and British Championship titles. In 2009 Beth co-founded Total Gymnastics to encourage more young people to take up gymnastics and enable children with talent to develop sporting careers. Beth received an MBE in 2010.

Read the oration for Beth Tweddle.