King’s New Year Honours: Herts & Essex High School alumna Sirah Abraham awarded OBE for services to tackling serious and organised crime in the Caribbean

A Bishop’s Stortford woman who works on tackling serious and organised crime has been awarded an OBE.

Criminal barrister, mother-of-two and former Herts & Essex High School student Sirah McGee, 47, who goes by her maiden name Abraham at work, was cited in the Overseas and International New Year Honours list.

Her role with the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) involves liaising with the heads of state of Caribbean countries, the UK and the USA in the fight against drug trafficking, firearms and money laundering.

Describing herself as “passionate about justice”, she told the Indie that news of the honour had come as a complete shock as she saw ensuring justice for all as her vocation in life.

“What a way to start the year!” she said. “I was absolutely shocked and very humbled. It’s quite an accolade and I’ve been quite overwhelmed with the response from people I went to school with, university, my work colleagues and friends – it’s been extraordinary.”

Sirah lives with husband Rob and their two sons, Oliver, 13, and Alexander, 12, on the Parsonage estate in Stortford. She has worked for the FCDO for 10 years.

“I work to try to reduce the impact of organised crime on the UK,” she said. “The Caribbean is a drug trafficking route for the UK so I do various things in the Caribbean to try to reduce the impact of that. I deal with extraditions, drafting legislation – all things to improve the rule of law.

“I was at school at Herts & Essex and went on to do law at Birmingham University and then started my career in the bar. I was in chambers in London and also worked for the CPS [Crown Prosecution Service].

“I am really passionate about justice and helping the victims and witnesses of crime. When you are in chambers you do that on a day-to-day level, but in the work I do now I cover eight countries in the Caribbean, where all crime is linked.

“Firearms, drugs, money laundering can all have a link to crime in the US and UK, and I advise all of these governments and write criminal justice reform strategies,” she said, admitting that it was a “big job!”

With the British legal system renowned for being one of the best in the world, the support it could offer these countries affected by high-level organised crime was hugely appreciated.

“They are very receptive and we’ve had many successes,” said Sirah. “We’ve had the first ever extradition from the UK into the eastern Caribbean, we’ve created sentencing guidelines for nine countries, the first ever criminal justice board and we’ve written a lot of legislation, thousands of sections of legislation in fact.

“I generally deal with prime ministers, attorney generals, DPPs [Directors of Public Prosecutions] and the police and travel quite often – at least once every couple of months – to the Caribbean. It’s a holiday destination for most, but I have a link in terms of crime.”

Sirah grew up in Harlow and moved to Stortford with her family several years ago. Her sons attend Bishop’s Stortford College, where last month she gave a speech as part of the Ferguson Lecture Series to inspire students to pursue a career in law.

As for celebrating her award, Sirah said they would probably hold a party. But for now, she is intent on continuing her role.

“Crime affects everybody and really impacts them, so my vocation is to help people at the hardest point and to try to stop it from happening,” she said.