My colleague Robin Masefield, who has died aged 73 of pancreatic cancer, was the director general of the Northern Ireland Prison Service from 2004 to 2010. His 40-year career in public service was largely focused on Northern Ireland, where he led policing reform, and the creation of a statutory framework for parades.
He was the first graduate recruited into the newly established Northern Ireland Office in 1973, from where his strong connection to the island of Ireland began. By 1983, he had spent several years abroad working for the Hong Kong government, where he helped draft the first green paper on widening local government representation. A subsequent role in the Home Office in the mid-1980s introduced Robin to prisons and criminal justice reform.
