Tesco chief’s new honour

Jul 3 2007 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

THE Liverpool-born chief executive of Britain’s largest supermarket chain is to be honoured with an honorary degree from his home town university.

Sir Terry Leahy is credited for developing the UK’s leading retailer, Tesco, into a global brand and along with Professor Akbar Ahmed, one of the world’s leading scholars on Islam, will receive an honorary degree from the University of Liverpool this week during a series of ceremonies at the Philharmonic Hall .

Sir Terry will also be joined in being honoured with degrees from the university by one of the world’s leading race horse trainers, Martin Pipe, whose achievements in the world of horse racing will be recognised. Among others being honoured are the poet Carol Ann Duffy, Professor Sir Alasdair Breckenridge, chairman of the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), and several distinguished legal professionals including the senior presiding judge for England and Wales, and Lord Justice Brian Leveson, who occupies the second highest judicial post after the Lord Chief Justice.

Judge Elizabeth Steel, who was as at the forefront of legal issues around the Hillsborough disaster in 1989, and was the first woman President of the Liverpool Law Society, will receive a Doctorate of Laws.

Honorary doctorates will be given to the leading molecular biologist Professor Joseph Sambrook for his work on the biology of normal and cancerous cells; Michael Potts, former High Sheriff of Merseyside, and Liverpool pioneer of charitable giving, Fred Freeman.