In June 2009, Judge Lafferty took part in the Martin Currie Rob Roy Challenge, which covers 55 miles of the Rob Roy Way in Scotland. The event sees teams walk 16 miles from Drymen near Loch Lomond to Callander, where they switch to bikes for an 11-mile cycle, and then walk the rest of the way to Kenmore.
The judge – the first visually impaired judge to preside over jury trials in the United Kingdom – undertook the trek on behalf of Sightsavers International.
After the initial 16-mile trek, the judge and Sightsavers' Dr Ibrahim Kabole took to a tandem, completing the 11-mile course to earn a bronze medal.
Their feat helped the Sightsavers team earn £2,210 - taking them over the £2,000 target they had set themselves.
The work of Sightsavers
The event was just part of the judge’s long-standing commitment to the charity.
"I’m a trustee of Sightsavers, which is the sexy name of the Royal Commonwealth Society for the Blind,” Judge Lafferty explains. "Sightsavers does work in the developing world to prevent blindness, to restore sight, and where possible, to train and rehabilitate people who have gone irreversibly blind.”
Sightsavers operates primarily in the Commonwealth, but also in contiguous countries such as French West Africa.
"We have a huge number of individual supporters, we get corporate donations and also get funding from the Government, Irish Aid and places like that,” says Judge Lafferty.
And, of course, there are events like the Rob Roy Challenge – "which I was persuaded to do in a moment of weakness!”.
The Rob Roy Challenge
Training wasn’t too much of a problem for the judge.
"I’ve been a walker all my life – I’ve run half marathons and done the London to Brighton Cycle Ride umpteen times,” he explained. "That was a few years ago, and I might be carrying a few more pounds than I’d ideally like, but for a man in his 60th year I am fairly fit. I was completely jiggered the next day, but luckily I didn’t do irreparable damage!”
What fundraising can achieve
Every penny could, potentially, save a life:
- £17 can restore the sight of an adult suffering from cataract;
- £75 could pay for a cataract operation on a child;
- £15 could pay for a Braille Kit to help a child who is blind to learn at school.
"There’s no ambiguity to giving someone their sight back,” reflects Judge Lafferty. "And with 66 per cent of the visually impaired people in this country unemployed, you can only imagine what the effects can be of going blind in the developing world.”
