Sue Wright, who passed away at the age of 57, dedicated her career to promoting awareness of fostering and adoption while working as a barrister specializing in child protection and building a successful business. Her early life was challenging, leading her to enter foster care at 16, though the arrangement failed. By 17, she resided in a facility operated by the Salvation Army, sharing space with another teenager and subsisting on a weekly stipend of £40. Between 1982 and 1984, she held part-time positions in cooking and cleaning at a Southport nursing home owned by Mrs. Smythe, who warmly accepted her with the phrase, ‘There’s always more room at the table.’ This sentiment became Wright’s guiding principle and the name of her presentations at events and business gatherings, aimed at encouraging more people to become foster parents or adopters. Born in Liverpool to Ann (née Clayton), a council employee, and John Sherman, who worked in logistics, Wright attended Stanley High School in Southport. Leaving without formal qualifications, she aspired to become a barrister to represent those without advocates. She funded her own education through college and evening classes to obtain O-levels, earned a BTEC in business studies and finance while employed at the nursing home, and later pursued a law degree at Preston Polytechnic (now the University of Central Lancashire) in the late 1980s. In the early 1990s, she relocated to London, passing her bar examinations while working at Lehman Brothers in the financial district, where colleagues mistakenly believed she was studying cosmetology. Returning to Merseyside in the late 1990s, Wright served as a foster parent for Liverpool City Council for 16 years, caring for seven children overall. She initially balanced this with her full-time legal practice in child protection, establishing herself as a prominent advocate in northern England. Later, she founded the Harrogate Group in 2021, a firm offering property finance and consulting services. Wright’s commitment to helping others included support for animal welfare; she actively contributed to various rescue organizations, such as Manchester Dogs Home, raising £2.2 million to reconstruct its facilities following a 2014 arson incident. Just four months prior to her death from cancer, she received a special recognition for her efforts with children and families at the 2025 Women of the Year awards. She advocated for the National Health Service to implement standard yearly blood screenings, arguing that such measures could enable earlier diagnoses and potentially save lives, including her own. Wright is survived by her partner, Faisal Arif; her daughter, Sonia, from her previous marriage to soccer player Mark Wright, which concluded in divorce; her children, Ruth, Keira, Cory, and Miley; her granddaughter, Delilah; and her sibling.
