Beazley chief executive Adrian Cox has encouraged City business leaders to hire ex-offenders as he believes in “looking beyond convictions and recognising potential”.
The boss of the FTSE specialist insurer, which agreed to be acquired by Zurich Insurance for approximately £8.14bn earlier this year, said: “City employers can transform lives while strengthening their organisations’ access to committed and resilient talent.”
Cox, who hosted an event last week with rehabilitation charity Key4Life, was joined by former businessmen who each served time in prison, including former Autonomy chief financial officer Sushovan Hussain and former Touchbase co-founder Riordan Maynard, who shared their experiences of incarceration, rehabilitation, and life after prison.
Hussain was sentenced to five years in a US federal prison after being convicted of fraud-related offences connected to Hewlett-Packard’s (HP) acquisition of Autonomy. Autonomy’s co-founder Mike Lynch was acquitted of all criminal fraud charges by a US jury in June 2024, but died in August after his superyacht sank during a severe storm off the coast of Sicily.
Hussain, who since his release has founded Liberatus, which helps prison leavers find employment, said: “Companies can benefit massively from the untapped talent pool in prisons. Rehabilitation depends on employment and if you can give employment to prison leavers they will have another chance to rebuild their lives.”
British prisons are at crisis levels
A report by Reed in Partnership last year reported that employers are less willing to hire ex-offenders than they were in 2013. This comes as more than a third of all jobs now require a Disclosure and Barring Service check, which is an official record of a person’s criminal convictions, cautions, and relevant police information, before employment is secured.
There is a severe overcrowding crisis in prisons in the UK, which has forced the government to implement emergency early-release schemes. However, it was reported last month that those freed under the government’s last early release scheme are returning to jail at a rapid rate. The reoffending rate in England and Wales stands at nearly 29 per cent, doubling for those who remain unemployed after release.