A WINCHESTER woman is looking forward to working on her golf swing after retiring from a “life of crime.”

During her 26 year career as a magistrate, Sylvia Peach also spent 16 years on the board of visitors for Winchester Prison, the jail’s watchdog, and 10 years on the parole board.

“My life of crime started as a probation officer in the 1980s, because I was always a bit fascinated by naughty people.

“I think I was rather inclined to challenge the rules myself at school, but I had parents who made me adhere to them,” Mrs Peach said.

She had her last day in court at Basingstoke Magistrates in April, but the 70-year-old mother-of-three said there had been no single case that stands out in her mind.

“Each case had its own interest, its own sadness. And of course satisfaction when people did respond and keep on the straight and narrow. But they were all interesting,” she said.

In 1995 her work at Winchester Prison brought her into contact with one of Britain’s most notorious serial killers, Rose West.

Mrs Peach, who has five young grandchildren, said: “I met her when she was being held at Winchester during the trial. It was just like meeting a normal person. She didn’t strike me as evil – she struck me as very ordinary.”

And it was also her work for the board of visitors which saw her climb onto the roof at 4am during the riots of 1990 to speak with inmates.

“It was a bit scary because you thought if you said the wrong thing they might jump off. There was a picture of me in the Guardian, and my family said ‘For God’s sake! Why have you got your handbag up there with you?’ “I said to them ‘where is safe to leave your handbag in a prison?’”

For her work with the prison she was awarded an OBE in 1996.

Mrs Peach said she looks forward to playing more golf and will remain busy as a governor of St Edward’s School in Sherfield English, a school for boys with behavioural difficulties.

“I’m going to miss it. But then that’s life,” she said.