‘It’s a complete scandal’: The aristocrat fighting to help prison children escape the stigma of crime

Despite being born into a world of wealth and privilege, Lady Edwina Grosvenor has seen first hand the devastating impact of a childhood tainted by the stigma of crime.

She was just a teenager when she first started working with mothers at risk of losing their children on a work experience placement at a charity in north Wales.

The “eye-opening” experience came just a few short years after she was taken by her late father, the sixth Duke of Westminster and one of the richest men in Britain, to speak to two heroin addicts at a drug treatment centre in Liverpool. He wanted his daughters to understand the risks of taking drugs.

The transformative experiences – a world away from her life at the family’s 11,000-acre estate in Cheshire – helped spark a lifelong passion for criminal justice reform.

By the time she returned home from travelling in Nepal, where she worked at Central Jail in Kathmandu, she had been “bitten by the prison bug”.

After completing an undergraduate degree in criminology and sociology, including a dissertation on babies born in prison who are removed from their mothers, she embarked on a career in prison reform and philanthropy – at times becoming a vocal critic of successive governments’ neglect of the justice sector.

Her pioneering women’s centre, Hope Street, which opened in 2023, offers a groundbreaking alternative to help keep female offenders and their children out of prison. It’s a blueprint she hopes the government will replicate across the country in its bid to reduce the number of women incarcerated.

Now she is determined to challenge the secretive and stigmatised reality facing young people who have grown up in the shadow of the justice system with a university scholarship programme.

Whether they were born to a parent in prison or have served time themselves, recipients will be supported to achieve a university education and, hopefully, a brighter future.

“The children of prisoners are usually forgotten more than any other group I can think of in this country, and it's a complete scandal,” Lady Edwina told The Independent.

“I think it's difficult to find your tribe when you're a young person. I think we can all remember what that feels like, but then imagine living with the shame of a parent being in prison, or a brother or a sister.

“It's like, how do you find the other people who've been through a similar thing?”

open image in gallery

No official data is recorded on how many children’s lives are blighted by their parents’ time in prison. Many end up in care, and research shows that they have some of the worst educational outcomes of any social group in the country, with students less likely to attend and succeed at university than their peers.

Only 13 per cent of pupils who were looked after in care continuously for 12 months or more entered higher education, according to government figures, compared to 43 per cent of all other pupils.

Lady Edwina added: “Wouldn't that be amazing if they could step out of the shadows and step out of that shame and just know somebody else who might be in the same boat, you know.”

The first-of-its-kind project with Manchester Metropolitan University, where Lady Edwina completed a master's in crime scene management and forensic evidence in her 40s, will also support young offenders who are “virtually written off” by society.

“I feel like those children and young people have been constantly failed by adults,” Lady Edwina continued.

“So therefore, once they've served their time, once their sentence has finished, is it not the duty of educational institutions, and for us, adults who care to do everything within our power to make sure that they go on to lead a better life?”

As well as financial support for nine students, the university will have a dedicated staff member to ensure the recipients and other students impacted by the justice system are supported during their studies.

She hopes the programme will simply offer young people a chance.

“Just a chance to learn, you know, a chance to be educated, a chance to be able to walk into an educational institution without feeling like they have to hide something like they shouldn't be there, like they don't belong,” she added.

“You know, education should be there for everybody regardless… They should just be able to walk into an educational institution and learn and have a good time. You know, it's as simple as that.”

She believes that meaningful progress towards better rehabilitation for offenders is all too often hampered by an “absolutely abject lack of understanding” about the justice sector, and called for awareness to be taught in schools as part of the national curriculum.

This, she hopes, would help combat the misconception that people leaving prison are all “high-end, dangerous, knife-wielding maniacs” and give employers more confidence to recruit ex-offenders.

“I think if that piece was done, then I think there would be more organisations and businesses and people who would feel braver, because I think they're scared,” she added.

“You know, I've worked for a long time, also in employment of people coming out of prisons, and there's a really interesting way of looking at it. And someone said to me, look, Edwina, if I hire from prison, I know who the man or woman is.

“I know what they've done for the last few years. They can't hide from what they've done. I know so much about that person that I can make a real-life, authentic judgement, and it's going to go one way or another, right?

“Or I could hire someone off the street. They could lie about their name. I do not know where they've been for the last few years. Yes, I could look at references. They could all be made up, you know. And I think that's a really nice way of looking at it.

“Just because someone's been in prison or had a conviction does not mean to say that they are more risky than the person who walks off the street.”

open image in gallery

This knowledge gap even extends to many making policy decisions, who “don’t know very much about prisons and don't spend very much time in them”.

“I think that's a real weakness we have,” she added.

Lady Edwina, who is married to the historian and television presenter Dan Snow, is reserving judgement on major justice reforms currently making their way through parliament – including plans for offenders to serve less time in custody and controversial proposals to scrap the right to a jury trial for some offences.

“Words are words”, she said. “Until I see it happening on the ground, it doesn't really mean anything”.

However, she hit out at news that the government is set to slash frontline spending on education courses by up to 50 per cent in some prisons, describing it as a “real backwards step”.

She said access to education is “everything” in prison and can be the difference between having a safe, calm environment, compared to one that is dangerous and out of control.

“I'm not party to what goes on in the background, but justice is an unprotected department,” she continued. “So if the treasury are looking to cut anything anywhere, it's always going to be the unprotected departments. And who is fighting, you know, for the justice department in the way that you'd fight for education, in the way that you'd fight for health.”

She described the prison system – which the Labour government say they inherited in crisis – as an “expensive failure” after decades of underinvestment.

“People don't realise that, you know, if the prisons are unstable and dangerous, that does directly impact the person on the street,” she said, because – aside from around 70 prisoners serving whole-life orders – everyone else will be released.

“So actually, it is really important that our prisons work and that people are stable in there, because they will come out onto the streets to a place near you.”

open image in gallery

Professor Julie Scott Jones, deputy pro-vice-chancellor for the Faculty of Arts and Humanities at Manchester Met, said the Lady Edwina Grosvenor Scholarships are an exciting way to improve access to higher education for people whose lives have been impacted by the criminal justice system.

“At Manchester Met, many of our students who have experience of the justice or care system go on to work in this field, driven by the desire to improve the system for others,” she added.

“Not only will these scholarships provide access to higher education, they have the potential to influence UK-wide policy by creating a pipeline of change-makers who actually understand how the system affects young people like them.”

The partnership continues the Grosvenor family’s long-held links with Manchester Met, where Lady Edwina’s late father, Gerald Grosvenor, was chancellor from 1992 to 2005.

Current vice-chancellor, Professor Malcolm Press, said: “The experiences young people have had should be no barrier to their future success in life, and the Lady Edwina Grosvenor Scholarships will provide the opportunity and support to ensure the talents of these young people can reach their full potential.”

The first recipients of the Lady Edwina Grosvenor Scholarships will begin their studies in September 2026.