THE head of one of the UK's first domestic legal advice teams has won Wonderful Worcestershire Woman of the Year for 2016.

Suzanne Oldnall leads the the domestic abuse team at county law firm Parkinson Wright Solicitors, which was set up three years ago and works closely with other agencies and previous victims of domestic abuse to raise awareness, making it is possible for sufferers to escape the cycle of violence.

Her success was announced at a special awards event at Worcestershire Cricket Club organised by local business woman Sarah Mayo-Evans and Julia Williams. There were shortlists for nine awards and the other winners were: Hannah Moule (woman owned business of the year), Carole Cumino (director/partner of the year), Sharon Tilki (one woman business of the year), Sophie Wynne-Owen (young employee of the year), Jean Wilson (significant achievement of the year), Hayley Jordan (volunteer of the year ) and Claire Spencer (winner of the public vote). As well as her overall win, Suzanne Oldnall also took the employee of the year category.

Cyril Arridge, managing partner of Parkingson Wright, said: "We nominated Suzanne for this award as she is passionate about her work and committed to helping sufferers of domestic abuse. We are delighted that she won not just the employee of the year award but was also the overall winner of Wonderful Worcestershire Women. These are awards that she fully deserves for all of her work in helping sufferers of domestic abuse." Miss Oldnall added: "I am extremely proud to have won these awards which has helped to raise awareness of domestic abuse and I encourage other victims of abuse to come forward and seek help.”

Event co-organiser Julia Williams said: "We just wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone involved. Thank you to everyone who came, all the nominees, Worcestershire County Cricket Club, the speakers, Deb Leary and Cleo Lacey, the host for the afternoon, Elliot Webb, and a huge thank you to all the sponsors. We have received fantastic feedback and couldn’t have done it without them. We were delighted to raise £1,877.20 plus gift aid from the raffle for St. Richard’s Hospice."

Cllr. Linda Robinson, leader of Wychavon District Council, added: "I was so thrilled to be invited to the event and to help celebrate the successes of business women in Worcestershire. I was especially pleased to see that so many of the winners were from within the Wychavon district. We are very proud of our businesses and prosperity is one of our key priorities.”