Padfield was born on 16 May 1955 in Windlesham, Surrey, England.^[6] She read Jurisprudence at St Anne's College, Oxford, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) degree in 1976;^[7] her BA was later promoted to a Master of Arts (MA Oxon) degree.^[6][8] She read for a postgraduate diploma in Criminology at Darwin College, Cambridge, which she completed in 1977.^[6] From 1978 to 1979, she completed a diplôme d'études supérieures in French law at the University of Aix-Marseille.^[7]

Legal career edit

Padfield was called to the bar on 27 July 1978. She then practised as a criminal law barrister.^[4] On 31 October 2002, she was appointed a Recorder (a part-time judge)^[9] She sat in the South Eastern Circuit and the Crown Court until 2014.^[8][9] She became a Bencher of Middle Temple on 3 February 2009.^[4]

Academic career edit

From 1990 to 1991, Padfield was an Alumni Affairs Officer at the University of Cambridge.^[6] In 1991, she was elected a Fellow of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.^[8] From 1992 to 2014, she was an academic of the Cambridge Institute of Criminology: she was an affiliated lecturer from 1992 to 1996, a lecturer from 1998 to 2002, and a senior lecturer from 2002 to 2004.^[6] She then moved to the Faculty of Law, where she was a senior lecturer from 2005 to 2012.^[6] For the 2008/2009 academic year, she was Professeur Invité at the University of Poitiers in France.^[7] In 2012, she was promoted to Reader in Criminal and Penal Justice.^[6][8] In 2017, she was promoted to Professor in Criminal and Penal Justice.

In March 2013, Padfield was announced as the next Master of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, in succession to Robert Lethbridge.^[1] She took up the appointment in October 2013, becoming the 8th Master of Fitzwilliam College, the first woman to hold the post.^[8] In February 2019, it was announced that she would be succeeded as Master by Sally Morgan, Baroness Morgan of Huyton: Padfield was succeeded by Morgan in October 2019.^[10][11]

In 1979, she married Christopher Padfield.^[6] He is an engineer and academic; he works at the University of Cambridge and Trinity Hall, Cambridge.^[12] Together, they have three children; two sons and one daughter.^[6] Nicola Padfield's hobbies include riding tandem bicycle, her husband being her long-time partner in this pastime. During her term as Master of the Fitzwilliam College, the Padfields assembled a fleet of tandems hosted at the Master's Lodge and regularly invited the college's students to attend leisure rides around Cambridge in their company.

• Padfield, Nicola (1995). The Criminal Justice Process: Text and Materials (1st ed.). London: Butterworths. ISBN 978-0406052438.
• Padfield, Nicola (1998). A guide to the Crime and Disorder Act 1998. London: Butterworths. ISBN 978-0406905246.
• Walker, Nigel; Padfield, Nicola (1996). Sentencing: theory, law, and practice (2nd ed.). London: Butterworths. ISBN 978-0406063250.
• Padfield, Nicola (2002). Beyond the tariff: human rights and the release of life sentence prisoners. Cullompton: Willan. ISBN 978-1903240885.
• Padfield, Nicola, ed. (2007). Who to release?: parole, fairness and criminal justice. Cullompton: Willan. ISBN 978-1843922278.
• Padfield, Nicola; Smit, Dirk van Zyl; Dünkel, Frieder, eds. (2010). Release from prison: European policy and practice. Cullompton: Willan. ISBN 978-1843927419.
• Padfield, Nicola (2012). Criminal law (8th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199644353.
• Padfield, Nicola (2014). Criminal law (9th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0198704164.
• Padfield, Nicola, ed. (2014). Blackstone's statutes on criminal justice & sentencing (5th ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0199582310.
• Padfield, Nicola; Bild, Jonathan (2015). Text and Materials on the Criminal Justice Process (5th ed.). London: Routledge. ISBN 978-1138918337.