Sara Nathan Given Freedom of the Borough of Ealing

Acton resident hopes award is step toward sanctuary status


Picture: Sara Nathan

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March 26, 2026

Long-term Acton resident and refugee charity co-founder Sara Nathan has been awarded the Freedom of the Borough of Ealing — the highest honour the council can bestow.

She received the award at a ceremony held at Gunnersbury Park Museum on Wednesday evening (25 March), hosted by the Mayor of Ealing. She was among six individuals recognised for exceptional contributions to the borough, joining England footballer Chloe Kelly, posthumous recipients Eric and Jessica Huntley, former MP Virendra Sharma, and women's rights campaigner Pragna Patel.

She said: "I'm both flattered and surprised by this award. And my Arsenal-supporting husband cannot believe I am following in Saka's footsteps."

The reference to Saka nods to Bukayo Saka — the England international and former Greenford schoolboy who is among the award's earlier recipients. She added that she hoped the honour would be "a symbol of Ealing's commitment to being a Borough of Sanctuary" and expressed hope it would accompany, rather than replace, tangible support for the Ealing Sanctuary Hub.

Sara Nathan's CV is remarkably broad. She spent 15 years as a BBC journalist, working on flagship programmes including Newsnight, Breakfast Time and The Money Programme, and was part of the launch team for BBC Radio 5 Live, where she became the first editor of its morning programme.

In 1995 she made history as Britain's first female editor of a television network news programme, taking the helm at Channel 4 News — a role she held until 1997. She went on to serve as a member of the Radio Authority, a founder board member of Ofcom, and an Editorial Adviser to the BBC Trust from 2008 until its abolition in 2016.

Beyond broadcasting, she accumulated an extraordinary range of public appointments across law, medicine, finance and regulation — from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority and the Financial Services Authority's Regulatory Decision Committee, to the Judicial Appointments Commission and the Solicitors' Regulation Authority. She chaired the Animal Procedures Committee until 2012, served as a Public Appointments Assessor, and has sat as a tribunal chair for the Nursing and Midwifery Council, Social Work England and the General Optical Council. In 2008, she was appointed an OBE in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

In 2015, she co-founded Refugees at Home, a charity that matches destitute asylum-seekers and refugees with hosts across Britain. The charity has now made over 6,750 placements, totalling more than 500,000 individual person nights of safe accommodation.

She herself has hosted 44 refugees in her Acton home, welcoming people from Syria, Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Iran, Afghanistan, Egypt and beyond.

Closer to home, she chairs EASE, an asylum-seeker drop-in centre based in Acton.

The Freedom of the Borough carries no formal privileges — it does not entitle the recipient to do anything a regular citizen cannot — but it remains the most prestigious recognition Ealing Council can offer, reserved for those who have given exceptional service to the borough or brought lasting distinction to it.

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