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Staff and Trustees

Our people

At the Charity for Action on Spiritual Abuse we are fortunate to have a fantastic group of trustees and staff.

We are a ‘by and for’ organisation, which means that all of our trustees and staff have lived experience of spiritual abuse. Many of us have devoted our careers to supporting people who have experienced spiritual abuse, or researching spiritual abuse.

We work tirelessly to support survivors, deliver training and drive forward research.

Trustees

Zoe Rollinson

Leadership, for me, demands empathy and authority, protecting people, setting boundaries, and keeping promises even when it is uncomfortable. I lead in that way is decisive, strategic, and integrity driven. Through my own visionary insight, I take responsibility for results, own the consequences, and expect the same accountability from those who work with me. I am a visionary who is enthusiastic about connecting people (projects or reports) to goals aims and directives of my organisation.
Across my career, I have rebuilt failing systems, led reform across government and education, and delivered measurable improvement in performance, cost control, and public confidence.
Directing £200m portfolios and cross-functional teams of 1500+, I convert ministerial ambition into measurable, real-world delivery. My leadership style is defined by precision, pace, and radical clarity by cutting through noise, challenging assumptions, and creating the conditions for others to thrive. I am widely recognised for blending policy intelligence with digital innovation, spearheading AI-driven governance reforms that have saved millions, strengthened accountability, and reshaped performance culture within the Department for Education and Education Sector.

Leigh McFarlane

Leigh McFarlane is the founding Director of Kaizen Safeguarding, with over 25 years’ experience working across the faith, charity, and education sectors. She specialises in safeguarding within faith contexts, working across all four UK nations as well as internationally. Her work focuses on developing safe, healthy cultures where safeguarding is understood not simply as process, but as an ethical, cultural, and leadership responsibility. She has a particular interest in spiritual abuse and is committed to ensuring faith spaces are safe, healthy environments for all.

A committed advocate for survivors, Leigh centres survivor voice in organisational response, learning, and reform, ensuring lived experience meaningfully shapes practice at every level. She has published academic research on safeguarding in faith settings and engages across both grassroots safeguarding practice and public policy, including previous work with parliamentary groups at Westminster and current involvement with the Cross-party Group for Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse at the Scottish Parliament.

Leigh brings experience of senior leadership, governance, and public engagement, including media work and public speaking. She supports organisations navigating complex safeguarding challenges, helping them embed trauma-informed, survivor-centred approaches and create environments that are not only safer, but braver – where people are heard, respected, and valued.

Ms Sarvat Ujra Mulla

Ms Sarvat Ujra Mulla has studied MA Islamic Studies, PGC Islamic Education and PGC in Education Practice. She was a ‘Trainer’ for the Effective Teaching Skills and Special Educational Needs for the National Resource Centre for Supplementary Education (NRCSE), London. She has helped in developing ‘Teaching in Islamic Supplementary school’s course for the NRCSE and has developed the Professional Development programme, including Safeguarding course for staff of faith institutions as part of her work with Strengthening Faith Institutions (SFI).  Currently, Sarvat is pursuing a PhD in Education, researching the contribution of Muslim women in Supplementary schools.

Ruth Appleton

Ruth (she/her) is a freelance digital marketing consultant, helping charities and organisations in the wellness space increase their online impact.

She is training to be a counsellor, and hopes to specialise in working with survivors of spiritual abuse.

Ruth is a trustee at the Charity for Action on Spiritual Abuse and along with Founder Simon Plant works on the operations, marketing and strategic growth of the charity.

She also works as a Support Services Volunteer at Action on Spiritual Abuse, delivering support sessions and working to improve and expand our services.

Dr Maryyum Mehmood

Maryyum is a gender justice advocate, advisor and academic specialising in domestic abuse, ‘honour’-based violence and spiritual abuse. She is the Domestic Abuse Commissioner of England and Wales’s lead advisor on marginalised survivors.

In 2019, Maryyum founded The SHIFT (Social Harmony, Intercultural & Faith Training), through which she facilitates pan-sector partnerships, and provides advice and training to tackle issues around ‘race’, religion and gender. She has extensive experience of youth mentoring, movement building and mediation, which centres intergenerational and interfaith engagement.

She previously served as the Associate Director of the Cadbury Centre for the Public Understanding of Religion at the University of Birmingham where she devised and delivered value-based leadership training to senior faith leaders. Maryyum holds a PhD in religious prejudice, stigma and stereotyping from King’s College London, as well as a masters degree in security studies in South Asia.

Founders

Simon Plant

Simon has over 25 years experience working within safeguarding in Education, Local Government and Faith settings. Simon has a breadth of safeguarding knowledge including safeguarding children, safeguarding adults, safeguarding in faith, Domestic Abuse and Coercive Control.

Simon has spent 10 years listening to, hearing and validating people’s experiences of abuse and trauma within faith. This combined with his safeguarding experience has developed knowledge, skills and experience in supporting those who have experienced abuse and trauma.

Simon has qualifications and experience in Strategic and Executive Management which allows an understanding of the challenges of organisational change, developing and maintaining healthy culture and practice within organisations.

Simon is one of the founders of the Charity for Action on Spiritual Abuse.

Caroline Plant

Caroline is a Registered Nurse with 11 years of experience in a variety of Adult Nursing settings.

Caroline is a survivor of extreme Spiritual Abuse. Caroline has written and published her autobiography.

Caroline is an excellent communicator and storyteller. Caroline uses her life experiences to discuss in a personal, powerful and relatable way:

  • Adverse Childhood experiences, including mental health, and violence
  • Radicalisation and extremism
  • Spiritual Abuse, Coercion and control
  • Domestic Abuse, Coercion and Control
  • The impact of trauma on physical, emotional and mental health and her life-long journey to living well with the trauma she has experienced.
  • Best practice in responding to supporting and working with survivors of abuse and trauma.

Caroline’s experience and insight is a rich source of practice learning for a wide variety of professionals that come into contact with those experiencing and recovering from abuse and trauma including Social Workers, Safeguarding Professionals, Police including Investigating Officers, Health Professionals including Psychotherapists, Counsellors and Mental Health professionals, as well as those who lead in Religious Organisations.

Caroline is one of the founders of the Charity for Action on Spiritual Abuse and her volunteer work is vital to the successful running of the charity.

Past Trustees

Farooq Mulla

Farooq has worked as an Imam in the USA, London, and Lincolnshire from 1992- 2000. He has worked as a Chaplain from 1995 to 2011 in various prisons in the UK, including 10 years at HMP Whatton, Europe’s largest sex offender prison. His current work also involves working with individuals to help them towards rehabilitation and restructuring their thoughts from a faith perspective. This has included working with high-risk individuals with personality disorders, to reduce their tendencies towards terrorism and radicalisation.

Farooq has worked as a sessional Muslim Chaplain at HMP Rampton, a consultant and trainer for Safeguarding Adults and Children, has contributed to Muslim Chaplaincy courses, Domestic Abuse and Spiritual Abuse Courses and contributed to academic papers on Abuse and Trauma within Faith.

Farooq is multi-lingual (Urdu/Hindi, Gujrati, and Arabic) and has also worked 1-1 with young and adult Muslims at risk of being radicalised.

Farooq has had to step back from Trustee duties due to health issues. We want to recognise his immeasurable contribution and impact for the Charity for Action on Spiritual Abuse during his time as a founding Trustee.

Prof. Lisa Oakley

Lisa is professor of safeguarding and knowledge exchange and deputy programme leader for the MSc in Family and Child Psychology in the School of Psychology at the University of Chester in the UK.

Lisa has taught in higher education for over 30 years. She is a chartered psychologist and chair of the British psychological society safeguarding advisory group.

Lisa has conducted research into issues of faith, safeguarding and abuse for the past 20 years and has focused on spiritual abuse, she has co-authored a number of articles and book chapters on these topics.  Lisa has presented on these topics nationally and internationally.

Lisa is currently engaged in a cross-faith research project exploring experiences of disclosing abuse that was experienced in a religious context.

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