THE WRN DIRECTORS
Heather Binning
Born in Scotland Heather began her career in the Foreign & Commonwealth Office where she held a number of overseas postings in places such as Washington DC to Kuwait. An experienced businesswoman, she went on to establish the first public internet access across the UK before becoming an economic development consultant for a range of organisations.
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Heather lives in South London and took up the baton of women’s rights in July 2021, bringing together a number of local women’s groups which grew to become the (entirely voluntary) Women’s Rights Network.
Mary Howden
Mary is a retired Social Worker and Learning and Development Manager in social services and is a former Head of Education and Workforce Development at the Scottish Social Services. In her work she has always centred women for example working with female survivors of child sexual abuse for 15 years.
She is appalled that women's rights to safety dignity and privacy have been eroded as well as safeguarding for children. She joined WRN to make a difference.
Mary is one of the Coordinators in WRN Scotland
Claire Loneragan
A retired IT professional, Claire found herself noticing that women’s rights weren’t something that could be taken for granted but were under attack.
Keen to do something useful, she answered the call to join the fledgling WRN where she now leads the web team and the editorial team. She is group coordinator for WRN Somerset and West Dorset.
Claire is a frequent contributor to the WRN blog page Women’s Words and has helped to produce several of our reports including editing State Sanctioned Sexual Assault.
Cathy Larkman
Cathy is a retired police Superintendent, with a wide breadth of policing experience, mainly focused on operational policing delivery to the public. She is a former firearms commander at both tactical and strategic level.
She was a founding member of the South Wales female police association and was named in a force ‘Breaking the Glass Ceiling’ event as an inspirational woman.
Cathy is Wales WRN coordinator and national policing lead.
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Much involved in WRN work to challenge police chiefs on many aspects of policy, Cathy authored the WRN report ‘State Sanctioned Sexual Assault’.
Liz
Liz works in public policy and has been a feminist and social activist for many years.
She is the link from the core team to the work we do on Justice including prisons, and to our work to influence ministers and politicians. She also links to the Research team, the Academics group, WRN Teachers and Legal team; and to specific Education task and finish groups.
Liz is a coordinator of the regional group which undertook the research for our report, When We Are At Our Most Vulnerable, on rapes and sexual assaults in hospitals.