Meet our board – Independent Scrutiny and Advisory Board

The board is made up of:

an independent Chairperson – who is elected by the panel every three years
an independent Vice Chairperson – who is elected by the panel every three years
nine independent members – from communities across Avon and Somerset

Representatives from Avon and Somerset Police are also in attendance.

Other attendees or representatives from community groups or organisations may be invited to participate on occasion, due to their subject matter expertise, lived experience, other specialist requirements or as an advisor.

Our independent chairperson

Maya Mate-Kole

Maya Mate-Kole

Maya has over a decade of experience in youth, community, and social work and is the Founder of the Mwanzo Project, a Black-led grassroots organisation established in response to gaps in provision for Black and racially minoritised young people at risk of offending and serious violence. The organisation was created in recognition of persistent racial disproportionality within the criminal legal system and the need for culturally informed, community-led support.

Maya previously served as a Commissioner for the Mayoral Commission on Race Equality, where she led the youth justice element of the Identifying Disproportionality in the Avon and Somerset Criminal Justice System report. She also contributed to the development of the Tackling Disproportionality Independent Scrutiny Board for the Steering Committee.

In her work with Avon and Somerset Police, Maya founded and chairs the Independent Scrutiny and Advisory Board to review the local implementation of the Police Race Action Plan and Race Matters work. She led on developing the Board’s structure, terms of reference, and consultation processes, and continues to provide strategic consultancy.

Alongside this, Maya works as an independent consultant on system change and race equity within the criminal legal system. She brings experience from the Bristol Youth Justice Board, the Preventing Serious Violence Board, and specialist work on tackling serious violence and strengthening community engagement.

In her role as Chair, Maya aims to strengthen trust, improve transparency and accountability, and support sustainable, anti-racist practice. She is committed to helping embed equity, dignity, and community accountability across policing and local systems.

Abir Ahmed

Abir is a dedicated community advocate passionate about fairness, inclusion and ensuring that every voice is heard.

With lived experience as a first-generation immigrant, Abir understands the challenges many families face, particularly when navigating education, public services and opportunities in a system that isn’t always built with them in mind.

Abir is the co-founder of Home 2 School Link, working closely with parents, schools and community groups to bridge communication gaps, improve attainment for minority students, and empower families to take an active role in their children’s education. This is about building stronger, more connected communities where everyone has a fair chance to succeed.

Beyond education, Abir is actively involved in community advocacy, working challenge systemic barriers and support meaningful change.

Whether it’s helping families access resources, working with school to improve engagement or supporting local initiatives, Abir believes real change happens when people come together to make a difference.

Abir believes in creating opportunities, challenging injustices, and helping communities thrive, and is looking forward to playing a role in that journey.

Bharat Malkani

Bharat lives in Bristol while working as an academic in the law department at Cardiff University. He has a long history of working on matters relating to racism and the criminal legal system.

Bharat has worked on death penalty cases in the United States of America that involve aspects of race discrimination and has recently written a book on racial justice and the legal system of England and Wales.

Bharat is currently the vice-chair on the Independent Oversight and Advisory Panel for the implementation of the Anti-Racism Action Plan in Wales, and he is co-chairing a Westminster Commission on joint enterprise, with a view to making recommendations for reform of a law that is disproportionately used against Black people.

Bharat joined the ISAB because he thinks it is important to proactively help the police when they expressly want to take steps to root out racism.

Although the struggle against racism is a constant one, he hopes that the Board is able to support officers to foster a culture of antiracism throughout Avon and Somerset police.

Courtney Young

Courtney grew up in the St Philip’s area of Bristol from a mixed heritage background. Courtney’s mum raised him and his three brothers as a single parent around the corner from Temple Meads and he was fortunate enough to immerse himself in a tight-knit community, regularly attending youth clubs.

Struggling to connect with education and what his aspirations could
be, Courtney left school with two GCSEs but a passion for sport. Seeing friends and family members make wrong choices ending up in trouble with the police or prison, he knew he wanted more from life than that. This led to working in sports coaching and youth work, gaining first-hand experience of the support and structure that youth services can bring.

Now he has over 10 years of experience in the industry and currently works for Empire Fighting Chance, championing empowering local communities and supporting young people being failed by other services.

Courtney chose to join the ISAB as it will allow him to continue to tackle the long-standing challenges, and disparities, faced by people from racially or ethnically minoritised background, when interacting with the police. It is also an opportunity to help rebuild trust and relationships between communities and the police.

Denise Johnson

Denise is a recently retired Chief Executive Officer, having led a specialist charity supporting survivors of sexual abuse and sexual violence. She is a serving magistrate, sitting in both the criminal and family courts, and also works as a registrar. Alongside this, she is a qualified counsellor and a trustee of SARI (Stand Against Racism & Inequality), where she contributes to governance, strategic oversight, and accountability.

Denise has been involved in community work for several decades, supporting individuals and families through advocacy, guidance, and practical support, particularly those who experience inequality, trauma, or exclusion from public systems. This long standing community involvement sits at the heart of her work and informs everything she does.

Denise became involved with the Independent Scrutiny and Advisory Board because she is passionate about racial justice, fairness, and ensuring that policing is accountable to the communities it serves. She believes that independent scrutiny is essential to building trust, particularly with Black heritage and racially minoritised communities, and to ensuring that Race Matters commitments lead to real, meaningful change rather than good intentions alone. In this role, she hopes to bring strong, independent, and compassionate scrutiny that is grounded in lived experience, evidence, and community insight. I want to support the Board in holding Race Matters activity to account, ensuring transparency, learning, and improvement.

Most importantly, she hopes to help ensure that the voices of Black heritage and racially minoritised communities are genuinely heard, respected, and reflected in policing practice, contributing to greater trust, fairness, and long term change.

Desmond Brown

Desmond is a senior specialist in policing accountability, racial justice, and multi-agency system reform with over 10 years’ experience designing independent scrutiny structures, leading anti-racism programmes, and convening community led police and Criminal Justice partnerships. He is nationally recognised for delivering evidence-based, community-led reforms, and holding policing institutions to the highest standards of transparency, equity and legitimacy.

Desmond has joined ISAB so he can continue to influence as a critical friend to Avon and Somerset Police in truly becoming an anti-racist police service.

Lana Lynn Mareno

Before returning to Bristol from where she was born, Lynn worked as a therapist in Bermuda, while also volunteering at Agape House, an AIDS and cancer hospice on the island. This included mentoring orphans of AIDS victims. Lynn’s journey has also included charitable outreach work in India.

In Bristol, Lynn has become an inspirational community figure working as a mental health counsellor / therapist for young people and families from Black heritage communities in the city.

Along the way she co-founded RISE (recognising individual successes and efforts), a non-profit social enterprise to highlight people from the African Caribbean heritage community. Lynn’s dedication and passion saw her feature in Bristol’s Top 100 BME Power list in 2018 and also receive a PCC Avon and Somerset Pride Award.

Since 2022, Lynn has been presenting on Ujima community radio, showcasing the African Caribbean community in Bristol.

Lynn joined the ISAB board to be part of the change the community needs to see within Avon and Somerset Police, and to be a ‘critical friend’ to improve race relations for future generations while making Avon and Somerset Police accountable to the community she grew up in.

Monira Chowdhury

Monira has long-standing decades of expertise and passion in equality / equity, diversity, inclusion and social justice, including anti-racism / race equity, gender equity and addressing intersectional inequalities.

Professionally Monira has held senior leadership roles in local government and health and social, voluntary and community sector organisations. Also Monira been a trustee of a significant number of organisations including being chair of a housing association.

With a background in law, and amongst some areas of her expertise, Monira has worked in:

community / civic engagement and regeneration
health and socio-economic inequalities
mental health and wellbeing
public and patient involvement
criminal justice
social housing
community and voluntary sector development

Monira has actively both led on and been involved in equity and social justice related initiatives across local, regional and national levels. One long-standing area of passion for Monira has been addressing racism and racial equity within policing specially, as it impacts young people and racially marginalised communities.

Monira’s aspiration is that the work of panel brings greater transparency to the work of Avon and Somerset Police and builds community trust.

Pat Rose

Pat came to Bristol from Jamaica at 10 years old as a child of the Windrush generation from a place where there was no concept of racism.

Growing up in Southmead, a predominantly white working class estate was challenging but built resilience and inspired a lifelong commitment to equality, equity and social justice, while still identifying as a proud ‘Meader’.

After studying criminal justice and social work at the University of Bristol, Pat embarked on a 30-year career in the health and social care sector, gaining a reputation for being able to connect with people labelled as “hard to reach” who have been struggling with addiction, homelessness or trauma.

Pat has delivered anti-racism training locally and nationally, and in 2014 was nominated for a BBC Radio 4 “All in the Mind” award, winning Mental Health Professional of the year.

Pat currently works as a substance misuse and homelessness practitioner. As well as being a member of the ISAB, Pat has previously been part of the Scrutiny of Police Powers Panel.

Pat is excited to be able to contribute to the culture change that is taking place within Avon and Somerset Police and her aspiration is for anti-racist policing to become normalised and integral to “how we do things around here”.

Zarah Morwood

Zarah is an employment law solicitor with over 25 years’ experience, having worked for various law firms and private businesses via her own legal consultancy firm, advising clients on all aspects of employment law.

Zarah was born in Buckinghamshire and have lived there most of my life. During her time there, in addition to her consultancy work, she was also a part time Law Lecturer at a local university for a number of years and so understands the challenges faced by teachers, support staff and pupils.

In addition, she became a Community Governor at an ethnically diverse local secondary school. She was invited to sit as a voluntary member of an Independent Advisory Group acting as a vital link between the local community and Thames Valley Police.

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