Masters of the Bench

Rosalind Wright was given her first taste of the law at 15 when, in the school holidays, she acted as her father’s ‘outdoor clerk’, delivering papers to barristers and sitting behind them in court. Her father dissuaded her from becoming a solicitor for fear of her ‘putting off his important clients’.

After a Law degree at University College London, Ros managed to secure a pupillage  through the help of her lecturer, the late Sir Jack Jacob QC who, noting that she was interested in common law and writing down ‘com. law’, accidentally recommended her to the very high-powered commercial Chambers of the late Master Littman. Her second six months were spent with the late Master Sherrard and she continued at 2 Crown Office Row as a tenant, until the combination of two babies and a busy practice persuaded her to enter government employment for a few years, just until the children went to school. Eighteen years (and a third child) later, she was still at the DPP’s office, now as an Assistant Director in charge of Fraud, and enjoying it hugely.

Ros joined the Securities and Futures Authority, undertaking disciplinary prosecutions and ending up as General Counsel and Director of Regulatory Policy. Headhunted to become Director of the Serious Fraud Office in 1997, she spent the next six years leading the department which investigated and prosecuted some of the biggest frauds  in the country.

In 2005, Ros was asked to Chair the Supervisory Committee of OLAF, the European Anti-Fraud Office in Brussels, and so commuted by Eurostar for six years. Simultaneously, she Chaired the Fraud Advisory Panel, was an independent board member of several government departments, and undertook voluntary work in her spare time.

In 2001, she was made a Companion of the Order of the Bath and was elected a Bencher. She was Lent Reader in 2010. She was awarded Honorary Silk in 2006 and Honorary LLD of the University of the West of England in 2017.

Ros currently Chairs disciplinary panels for three accountancy regulatory bodies, volunteers for the PSU, and occasionally gets to see her long-suffering husband and seven grandchildren.