Lecturer's moving tribute to London Bridge victim Saskia Jones
2 December 2019, 17:51
Dr Kerss taught Saskia Jones at Anglia Ruskin and shared his moving tribute of his former student with Shelagh Fogarty.
Simon Kerss taught Saskia Jones Criminology at Anglia Ruskin.
In a moving tribute to his former student, Kerss said: "She was an incredible student, an incredible human being and, as you can imagine, we were in a state of shock."
He said that she "had a passion for fairness and justice and always wanted to do the right thing" and that she "wanted to change the world."
Kerss continued: 'Her passion, her humility, her willingness to emphasise and embrace what can be the dark side.
"Criminology is kind of one of those areas where unfortunately, or fortunately in this case, which students embrace the darker side of human nature and want to understand why people act in the way they do.
"And also to better support victims of crime and understand the trauma that they go through.
"And everything she did from her reading to her supervisions to her contribution in lectures to her submissions or academic submissions, that ethos permeated all of those.
It was clear that she had a keen sense of injustice and that didn't sit well with her and she wanted to do something about it. She wanted to work for peace."
The lecturer spoke about the course's focus on rehabilitation - and Shelagh made the point that some people might be concerned about public safety. Specifically, keeping criminals away from people like Jack and Saskia.
The lecturer responded: "It was incredibly rare and it's tragic and it's horrible but that is not the end of the story. That is not the full story for those Saskia was trying to support and was supporting in fantastic ways. That is not the truth is not a story."
