My friend Melanie Jones, who has died aged 71, was a social worker specialising in help people with addictions, and a founding member of the Wirral Rape Crisis Counselling Service, set up in Merseyside in 1986.
Mel helped to establish the service with a small group of women in Wallasey, after the murder and sexual assault of Diane Sindall, a 21-year-old local florist.
Initially focused on erecting a memorial to Diane, for which they fundraised in pubs, Mel joined with Diane’s family and other local women to organise a well-attended “Reclaim the Night” march that followed the route of Diane’s final journey to unveil the stone on Borough Road in Birkenhead. The women later began to take a different tack after they realised they had many survivors of sexual assault within their group.
The service, which was formed with a staff of volunteers, has provided one-to-one counselling for many hundreds of women over the years, as well as training for police officers in how to deal with survivors of rape and sexual assault. From its humble beginnings it is now an established Merseyside-wide organisation known as RASA.
Born in Wallasey, Mel was one of five children, with sisters Carolyn, Kathryn and Gen, and a brother, Dave. Her mother was Mamie (nee Richards), a care assistant in a home for elderly people, and her father was John Jones, a shipyard sheet metal worker.
From St Georges secondary modern school in Leasowe Mel went to Liverpool University. There she took a degree in sociology in 1988, followed by a postgraduate diploma in counselling from Liverpool John Moores University.
Her first job, in 1993, was as a counsellor at the Merseyside Drugs Council in Birkenhead. After gaining a social work qualification from Liverpool John Moores in 2002 she spent the next three years as a social worker for Wirral social services, also completing a year’s employment at the organisation WISH (Women in Secure Environments) during that time.
In 2005 she moved to neighbouring Flintshire county council as a social worker supporting people with addictions, remaining there until her retirement in 2020. It was a job she loved and excelled at; known for her unwavering pragmatism, sense of humour and her ability to believe in people, she was invariably able to help her clients achieve the best outcomes for themselves.
An adventurous horsewoman in her spare time, in 2013 Mel went on a solo Andalusian trekking holiday and bonded with and brought back a horse, Gria. She had previously owned other horses, and showed a fearless talent for handling eccentric members of the species.
Mel was married to Thomas Hoare in 1975; they divorced in 1992. She is survived by their three children, Becky, Daniel and Matthew, and four grandchildren, Holly, Joe, Kira and Leo.
