Geoffrey Lane, Baron Lane
Encyclopedia
Geoffrey Dawson Lane, Baron Lane AFC
PC
QC
(17 July 1918 – 22 August 2005) was a British
Judge
who served as Lord Chief Justice of England
from 1980 to 1992. The later part of his term was marred by a succession of disputed convictions. Lane's critics claimed that his refusal to believe that police evidence could be institutionally corrupt and his reluctance to overturn the verdict of a jury "represented a dangerous hindrance to justice". His failure to acquit the Birmingham Six
in 1988 led to calls for his resignation following their successful appeal in 1991, and an editorial in The Times
"urged him to go," while 140 MPs signed a House of Commons motion to that effect. Bernard Levin
wrote that the "narcissistic arrogance" of Lane's "worthless certainty" was "a danger to justice".
. He attended Shrewsbury School
and Trinity College, Cambridge
where he graduated in the Classical
and Law Triposes
in 1939. He served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force
during World War II
, flying Wellington Bombers
for 104 Squadron
and later promoted to Squadron Leader
to command 233 Squadron
, which flew Dakota transport aircraft
in D-Day
and Operation Market Garden
. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1943. He read for the bar when he was demobilised.
at Gray's Inn
in 1946. He specialised in criminal prosecutions on the Midland and Oxford circuit and 'took silk' in 1962 to become a Queen's Counsel
. He prosecuted some of the Great Train robbers
in the same year, and he was appointed as Recorder of Bedford
, a part-time judge, in 1963.
While appearing for the defendant in the case of R v Morris (1966, 2 QB 110), he made a much cited statement as to what constituted 'common purpose
' for the criminal law
, which Lord Parker CJ
adopted:
at Gray's Inn. He delivered some notable judgments: in 1968, he awarded damages against a school for a pupil who had been injured in 'horseplay' between his peers, saying that the school had a responsibility to stop it getting out of hand; and while acting as an appeal judge, he found for the publishers of Last Exit to Brooklyn
who had been convicted of publishing an obscene
book, because of faults in the trial Judge's summing-up. He was picked to head the inquiry into the Staines air disaster in 1972, and concluded that the underlying cause was an undiagnosed heart condition of the pilot which impaired his judgement, coupled with the pilot's known bad temper which led to his junior crew being unwilling to challenge him.
in 1974 . He was one of the appeal judges in Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council
's appeal to keep its Grammar Schools rather than be forced by the government to adopt a comprehensive
system, and joined in the judgment which found for Tameside and brought a halt to comprehensivisation. Lane's judgment was personally critical of Fred Mulley, the Secretary of State for Education and Science
for being "far from frank" about his reason for intervening in Tameside.
In another high profile case in 1977, Lane joined in dismissing an appeal against deportation from Mark Hosenball
, an American journalist working for the Evening Standard
. In 1978, Lane found for the Labour Party
and against its dissident members (Paul McCormick and Julian Lewis
) who tried to win control of Newham North East Constituency Labour Party from the party's National Executive.
Lane became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
in October 1979, receiving as a Law lord additionally a life peerage as Baron Lane, of St Ippollitts in the County of Hertfordshire
. He had been appointed by the new Lord Chancellor
, Lord Hailsham
, soon after Margaret Thatcher
won the 1979 general election
. His appointment was welcomed in the legal profession, where Lane was regarded as a genial figure ("Geoffrey Dawson, Baron Lane. Good to have you back again."), but eventually not welcomed by Lane himself, who disliked the work. The overdue retirement of Lord Widgery
, whose physical ill-health and increasing dementia had become a suppressed scandal, led to Hailsham picking Lane to follow him as Lord Chief Justice from 1980.
. He had served as deputy chairman of the Parole Board
from 1970 to 1972. After the publication of lengthy interviews with members of the jury
in the trial of Jeremy Thorpe
, Lane supported moves (later made in the Contempt of Court Act 1981) to ban any publication of reports from within the jury room. Lane also opposed the proposal to extend rights of audience in the higher courts to solicitor
s.
One of the areas of crime in which Lane did not support shorter sentences was rape
. In 1982, Lane stated that sentences for rape should include immediate prison time, except in the most exceptional circumstances, which was taken as an implied rebuke for a Judge who had attracted controversy for fining a rapist £
2,000 and saying that the victim was "guilty of a great deal of contributory negligence
". Lane made it clear he rejected the general concept that victims of rape could have given their attackers an excuse. Much later in his career, Lane was responsible for a judgment in the case of R. v. R. which for the first time held that a husband could be guilty of raping his wife, overturning the irrebuttable presumption at common law
that a wife consented to sex with her husband.
Many observers regarded Lane as a defender of traditional 'Victorian' morality rather than a supporter of mild feminism. In 1983, he gave the Darwin Lecture at Cambridge
, in which he stated that he believed that the word "gay
" should not be used to mean homosexual
, and that instead the term should be "homosexuals, and/or buggers".
for the A6 murder. Hanratty was hanged
but disputes over whether he was properly convicted have continued to this day. He also represented the Metropolitan Police
at the Brabin inquiry into the conviction and subsequent hanging of Timothy Evans
for the murders at 10 Rillington Place in 1950. From the mid-1980s, concern grew. On December 5, 1985, Lane quashed the conviction of Anthony Mycock who had been convicted of a robbery which the BBC
television programme Rough Justice
argued had never occurred. In his judgment, Lane asserted that there had been a robbery and criticised the programme for "outrageous" interview methods. He regarded such programmes as "mere entertainment".
When the Birmingham Six
were granted permission to appeal in 1987, Lane presided over what was (at six weeks) the longest criminal appeal in English legal history. The judgment, given on January 28, 1988, adopted all the key parts of the Crown case, dismissed defence witnesses as unreliable, and upheld the convictions. Lane concluded by sending a message to the Home Secretary: "As has happened before in References by the Home Secretary to this court, the longer this hearing has gone on the more convinced this court has become that the verdict of the jury was correct." This implied rebuke and invitation not to refer any more questioned cases was criticised by campaigners. Lane initially refused leave to appeal to Winston Silcott
, convicted of the murder of Keith Blakelock
in the midst of a strong campaign of vilification from tabloid newspapers. In his findings he concluded that there was "no lurking doubt" in spite of the flimsiness of the prosecution case. Silcott's conviction for the Blakelock murder was ultimately quashed in 1991.
Unfortunately for Lane, in 1989, the appeal of the Guildford Four
proved police malpractice conclusively. In this case, Lane overturned the convictions. One observer described his appearance: "The Lord Chief Justice seemed to sniff something nasty in the air. Peering out over half-moon spectacles, Lord Lane's weary face was the mask of Justice embarrassed." Lane refused to free Paul Hill, one of the Four, because of a separate conviction for murder in Northern Ireland
, although this later turned out also to have been a wrongful conviction.
The Birmingham Six were granted a further appeal (their third) in 1991, when more evidence established that the police evidence at their trial had been fabricated. The Director of Public Prosecutions
announced before the appeal was held that he no longer considered their convictions safe and satisfactory. Lane did not preside over the appeal which formally cleared them. Their successful appeal lead to calls for Lane to resign, including a hostile editorial in The Times
and a motion in the House of Commons signed by 140 Members of Parliament
. These, and other cases where convictions were overturned, blighted the end of Lane's tenure as Lord Chief Justice.
, but otherwise kept a low profile (he never gave press interviews while in office and did not change that policy in his retirement).
He died in 2005 and was buried in the churchyard at St Ippolyts, near Hitchin in Hertfordshire.
Air Force Cross (United Kingdom)
The Air Force Cross is a military decoration awarded to personnel of the United Kingdom Armed Forces, and formerly also to officers of the other Commonwealth countries, for "an act or acts of valour, courage or devotion to duty whilst flying, though not in active operations against the enemy"...
PC
Privy Council of the United Kingdom
Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, usually known simply as the Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the Sovereign in the United Kingdom...
QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
(17 July 1918 – 22 August 2005) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Judge
Judge
A judge is a person who presides over court proceedings, either alone or as part of a panel of judges. The powers, functions, method of appointment, discipline, and training of judges vary widely across different jurisdictions. The judge is supposed to conduct the trial impartially and in an open...
who served as Lord Chief Justice of England
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary and President of the Courts of England and Wales. Historically, he was the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, but that changed as a result of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005,...
from 1980 to 1992. The later part of his term was marred by a succession of disputed convictions. Lane's critics claimed that his refusal to believe that police evidence could be institutionally corrupt and his reluctance to overturn the verdict of a jury "represented a dangerous hindrance to justice". His failure to acquit the Birmingham Six
Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six were six men—Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 in the United Kingdom for the Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and quashed by the Court of...
in 1988 led to calls for his resignation following their successful appeal in 1991, and an editorial in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
"urged him to go," while 140 MPs signed a House of Commons motion to that effect. Bernard Levin
Bernard Levin
Henry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...
wrote that the "narcissistic arrogance" of Lane's "worthless certainty" was "a danger to justice".
Early life
Lane was the son of a bank manager and was born in DerbyDerby
Derby , is a city and unitary authority in the East Midlands region of England. It lies upon the banks of the River Derwent and is located in the south of the ceremonial county of Derbyshire. In the 2001 census, the population of the city was 233,700, whilst that of the Derby Urban Area was 229,407...
. He attended Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School
Shrewsbury School is a co-educational independent school for pupils aged 13 to 18, founded by Royal Charter in 1552. The present campus to which the school moved in 1882 is located on the banks of the River Severn in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England...
and Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College, Cambridge
Trinity College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Trinity has more members than any other college in Cambridge or Oxford, with around 700 undergraduates, 430 graduates, and over 170 Fellows...
where he graduated in the Classical
Classical Tripos
The Classical Tripos is the taught course in classics at the University of Cambridge, equivalent to Literae Humaniores at Oxford. It is traditionally a three year degree, but for those who have not studied Latin and Greek at school a four year course has been introduced...
and Law Triposes
Tripos
The University of Cambridge, England, divides the different kinds of honours bachelor's degree by Tripos , plural Triposes. The word has an obscure etymology, but may be traced to the three-legged stool candidates once used to sit on when taking oral examinations...
in 1939. He served as a pilot in the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Formed on 1 April 1918, it is the oldest independent air force in the world...
during World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, flying Wellington Bombers
Vickers Wellington
The Vickers Wellington was a British twin-engine, long range medium bomber designed in the mid-1930s at Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey, by Vickers-Armstrongs' Chief Designer, R. K. Pierson. It was widely used as a night bomber in the early years of the Second World War, before being displaced as a...
for 104 Squadron
No. 104 Squadron RAF
No. 104 Squadron RAF was formed at Wyton on 4 September 1917 and was equipped with the DH 9. It then moved to Andover, prior to being posted to France in May 1918. The squadron later began re-equipping with the DH 10, however the armistice arrived before this was completed and the squadron returned...
and later promoted to Squadron Leader
Squadron Leader
Squadron Leader is a commissioned rank in the Royal Air Force and the air forces of many countries which have historical British influence. It is also sometimes used as the English translation of an equivalent rank in countries which have a non-English air force-specific rank structure. In these...
to command 233 Squadron
No. 233 Squadron RAF
No. 233 Squadron RAF was a Royal Air Force squadron that operated from 1918–1919, 1937–1945, 1952 - 1957 and 1960–1964. The squadron was formed from several Royal Naval Air Service flights and took part in the tail end of World War I before being disbanded. The squadron was reformed with the...
, which flew Dakota transport aircraft
Douglas DC-3
The Douglas DC-3 is an American fixed-wing propeller-driven aircraft whose speed and range revolutionized air transport in the 1930s and 1940s. Its lasting impact on the airline industry and World War II makes it one of the most significant transport aircraft ever made...
in D-Day
D-Day
D-Day is a term often used in military parlance to denote the day on which a combat attack or operation is to be initiated. "D-Day" often represents a variable, designating the day upon which some significant event will occur or has occurred; see Military designation of days and hours for similar...
and Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden
Operation Market Garden was an unsuccessful Allied military operation, fought in the Netherlands and Germany in the Second World War. It was the largest airborne operation up to that time....
. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1943. He read for the bar when he was demobilised.
Legal career
Lane was called to the barCall to the bar
The Call to the Bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party, and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received a "call to the bar"...
at Gray's Inn
Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
in 1946. He specialised in criminal prosecutions on the Midland and Oxford circuit and 'took silk' in 1962 to become a Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...
. He prosecuted some of the Great Train robbers
Great Train Robbery (1963)
The Great Train Robbery is the name given to a £2.6 million train robbery committed on 8 August 1963 at Bridego Railway Bridge, Ledburn near Mentmore in Buckinghamshire, England. The bulk of the stolen money was not recovered...
in the same year, and he was appointed as Recorder of Bedford
Bedford
Bedford is the county town of Bedfordshire, in the East of England. It is a large town and the administrative centre for the wider Borough of Bedford. According to the former Bedfordshire County Council's estimates, the town had a population of 79,190 in mid 2005, with 19,720 in the adjacent town...
, a part-time judge, in 1963.
While appearing for the defendant in the case of R v Morris (1966, 2 QB 110), he made a much cited statement as to what constituted 'common purpose
Common purpose
The doctrine of common purpose, common design or joint enterprise is a legal doctrine in some common law jurisdictions which imputes criminal liability on the participants to a criminal enterprise for all that results from that enterprise...
' for the criminal law
English criminal law
English criminal law refers to the body of law in the jurisdiction of England and Wales which deals with crimes and their consequences. Criminal acts are considered offences against the whole of a community...
, which Lord Parker CJ
Hubert Parker, Baron Parker of Waddington
Hubert Lister Parker, Baron Parker of Waddington PC was a British Judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1958 to 1971...
adopted:
- "where two persons embark on a joint enterprise, each is liable for the acts done in pursuance of that joint enterprise, that that includes liability for unusual consequences if they arise from the execution of the agreed joint enterprise but (and this is the crux of the matter) that, if one of the adventurers goes beyond what had been tacitly agreed as part of the common enterprise, his co-adventurer is not liable for the consequences of that unauthorised act. Finally, he says it is for the jury in every case to decide whether what was done was part of the joint enterprise, or went beyond it and was in fact an act unauthorised by that joint enterprise."
High Court
Later in 1966, Lane became a full-time Judge of the Queen's Bench Division (with the customary Knighthood), as well as a BencherBencher
A bencher or Master of the Bench is a senior member of an Inn of Court in England and Wales. Benchers hold office for life once elected. A bencher can be elected while still a barrister , in recognition of the contribution that the barrister has made to the life of the Inn or to the law...
at Gray's Inn. He delivered some notable judgments: in 1968, he awarded damages against a school for a pupil who had been injured in 'horseplay' between his peers, saying that the school had a responsibility to stop it getting out of hand; and while acting as an appeal judge, he found for the publishers of Last Exit to Brooklyn
Last Exit to Brooklyn
Last Exit to Brooklyn is a 1964 novel by American author Hubert Selby, Jr. The novel has become a cult classic because of its harsh, uncompromising look at lower class Brooklyn in the 1950s and for its brusque, everyman style of prose....
who had been convicted of publishing an obscene
Obscenity
An obscenity is any statement or act which strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time, is a profanity, or is otherwise taboo, indecent, abhorrent, or disgusting, or is especially inauspicious...
book, because of faults in the trial Judge's summing-up. He was picked to head the inquiry into the Staines air disaster in 1972, and concluded that the underlying cause was an undiagnosed heart condition of the pilot which impaired his judgement, coupled with the pilot's known bad temper which led to his junior crew being unwilling to challenge him.
Appellate courts
Lane was made a Lord Justice of AppealCourt of Appeal of England and Wales
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales is the second most senior court in the English legal system, with only the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom above it...
in 1974 . He was one of the appeal judges in Tameside Metropolitan Borough Council
Tameside
The Metropolitan Borough of Tameside is a metropolitan borough of Greater Manchester in North West England. It is named after the River Tame which flows through the borough and spans the towns of Ashton-under-Lyne, Audenshaw, Denton, Droylsden, Dukinfield, Hyde, Mossley and Stalybridge. Its western...
's appeal to keep its Grammar Schools rather than be forced by the government to adopt a comprehensive
Comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...
system, and joined in the judgment which found for Tameside and brought a halt to comprehensivisation. Lane's judgment was personally critical of Fred Mulley, the Secretary of State for Education and Science
Secretary of State for Education and Skills
The Secretary of State for Education is the chief minister of the Department for Education in the United Kingdom government. The position was re-established on 12 May 2010, held by Michael Gove....
for being "far from frank" about his reason for intervening in Tameside.
In another high profile case in 1977, Lane joined in dismissing an appeal against deportation from Mark Hosenball
Mark Hosenball
Mark Hosenball is an investigative correspondent at Newsweek. He started there in November 1993, after working at Dateline NBC as an investigative producer. He also worked at The Sunday Times, the Evening Standard, Time Out, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and The New Republic...
, an American journalist working for the Evening Standard
Evening Standard
The Evening Standard, now styled the London Evening Standard, is a free local daily newspaper, published Monday–Friday in tabloid format in London. It is the dominant regional evening paper for London and the surrounding area, with coverage of national and international news and City of London...
. In 1978, Lane found for the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
and against its dissident members (Paul McCormick and Julian Lewis
Julian Lewis
Dr. Julian Murray Lewis is a British Conservative Party politician, who has been the Member of Parliament for New Forest East in Hampshire since the 1997 general election.-Education:Born on 26 September 1951 in Swansea, Dr...
) who tried to win control of Newham North East Constituency Labour Party from the party's National Executive.
Lane became a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
Judicial functions of the House of Lords
The House of Lords, in addition to having a legislative function, historically also had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers, for impeachment cases, and as a court of last resort within the United Kingdom. In the latter case the House's...
in October 1979, receiving as a Law lord additionally a life peerage as Baron Lane, of St Ippollitts in the County of Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire
Hertfordshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan county in the East region of England. The county town is Hertford.The county is one of the Home Counties and lies inland, bordered by Greater London , Buckinghamshire , Bedfordshire , Cambridgeshire and...
. He had been appointed by the new Lord Chancellor
Lord Chancellor
The Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain, or Lord Chancellor, is a senior and important functionary in the government of the United Kingdom. He is the second highest ranking of the Great Officers of State, ranking only after the Lord High Steward. The Lord Chancellor is appointed by the Sovereign...
, Lord Hailsham
Quintin Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone
For the businessman and philanthropist, see Quintin Hogg Quintin McGarel Hogg, Baron Hailsham of St Marylebone, KG, CH, PC, QC, FRS , formerly 2nd Viscount Hailsham , was a British politician who was known for the longevity of his career, the vigour with which he campaigned for the Conservative...
, soon after Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Thatcher
Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher, was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990...
won the 1979 general election
United Kingdom general election, 1979
The United Kingdom general election of 1979 was held on 3 May 1979 to elect 635 members to the British House of Commons. The Conservative Party, led by Margaret Thatcher ousted the incumbent Labour government of James Callaghan with a parliamentary majority of 43 seats...
. His appointment was welcomed in the legal profession, where Lane was regarded as a genial figure ("Geoffrey Dawson, Baron Lane. Good to have you back again."), but eventually not welcomed by Lane himself, who disliked the work. The overdue retirement of Lord Widgery
John Widgery, Baron Widgery
John Passmore Widgery, Baron Widgery, OBE, TD, QC, PC was an English judge who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1971 to 1980...
, whose physical ill-health and increasing dementia had become a suppressed scandal, led to Hailsham picking Lane to follow him as Lord Chief Justice from 1980.
Lord Chief Justice
Shortly after taking over as Lord Chief Justice, Lane attracted political controversy when he called for a general reduction in prison terms. His appeal judgments frequently cut the length of sentences and he was known to be a member of the Prison Reform TrustPrison Reform Trust
The Prison Reform Trust was founded in 1981 in London, England by a small group of prison reform campaigners who were unhappy with the direction in which the Howard League for Penal Reform was heading, concentrating more on community punishments than on traditional prison reform issues...
. He had served as deputy chairman of the Parole Board
Parole Board
A parole board is a panel of people who decide whether an offender should be released from prison on parole after serving at least a minimum portion of their sentence as prescribed by the sentencing judge. Parole boards are used in many jurisdictions, including the United Kingdom and the United...
from 1970 to 1972. After the publication of lengthy interviews with members of the jury
Jury
A jury is a sworn body of people convened to render an impartial verdict officially submitted to them by a court, or to set a penalty or judgment. Modern juries tend to be found in courts to ascertain the guilt, or lack thereof, in a crime. In Anglophone jurisdictions, the verdict may be guilty,...
in the trial of Jeremy Thorpe
Jeremy Thorpe
John Jeremy Thorpe is a British former politician who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 to 1976 and was the Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979. His political career was damaged when an acquaintance, Norman Scott, claimed to have had a love affair with Thorpe at a time...
, Lane supported moves (later made in the Contempt of Court Act 1981) to ban any publication of reports from within the jury room. Lane also opposed the proposal to extend rights of audience in the higher courts to solicitor
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
s.
One of the areas of crime in which Lane did not support shorter sentences was rape
Rape
Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent. The...
. In 1982, Lane stated that sentences for rape should include immediate prison time, except in the most exceptional circumstances, which was taken as an implied rebuke for a Judge who had attracted controversy for fining a rapist £
Pound sterling
The pound sterling , commonly called the pound, is the official currency of the United Kingdom, its Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, British Antarctic Territory and Tristan da Cunha. It is subdivided into 100 pence...
2,000 and saying that the victim was "guilty of a great deal of contributory negligence
Contributory negligence
Contributory negligence in common-law jurisdictions is defense to a claim based on negligence, an action in tort. It applies to cases where a plaintiff/claimant has, through his own negligence, contributed to the harm he suffered...
". Lane made it clear he rejected the general concept that victims of rape could have given their attackers an excuse. Much later in his career, Lane was responsible for a judgment in the case of R. v. R. which for the first time held that a husband could be guilty of raping his wife, overturning the irrebuttable presumption at common law
Common law
Common law is law developed by judges through decisions of courts and similar tribunals rather than through legislative statutes or executive branch action...
that a wife consented to sex with her husband.
Many observers regarded Lane as a defender of traditional 'Victorian' morality rather than a supporter of mild feminism. In 1983, he gave the Darwin Lecture at Cambridge
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
, in which he stated that he believed that the word "gay
Gay
Gay is a word that refers to a homosexual person, especially a homosexual male. For homosexual women the specific term is "lesbian"....
" should not be used to mean homosexual
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
, and that instead the term should be "homosexuals, and/or buggers".
Disputed convictions
Lane had an early introduction to controversies and disputed convictions when, in 1962, he was the junior Crown counsel in the trial of James HanrattyJames Hanratty
James Hanratty , a petty criminal with no history of violence, was the eighth-to-last person in the United Kingdom to be hanged after being convicted of the murder of Michael Gregsten at Deadman's Hill on the A6, near the village of Clophill, Bedfordshire, England, on 23 August 1961...
for the A6 murder. Hanratty was hanged
Capital punishment
Capital punishment, the death penalty, or execution is the sentence of death upon a person by the state as a punishment for an offence. Crimes that can result in a death penalty are known as capital crimes or capital offences. The term capital originates from the Latin capitalis, literally...
but disputes over whether he was properly convicted have continued to this day. He also represented the Metropolitan Police
Metropolitan police
Metropolitan Police is a generic title for the municipal police force for a major metropolitan area, and it may be part of the official title of the force...
at the Brabin inquiry into the conviction and subsequent hanging of Timothy Evans
Timothy Evans
Timothy John Evans was a Welshman accused of murdering his wife and daughter at their residence in Notting Hill, London in November 1949. In January 1950 Evans was tried and convicted of the murder of his daughter, and he was sentenced to death by hanging...
for the murders at 10 Rillington Place in 1950. From the mid-1980s, concern grew. On December 5, 1985, Lane quashed the conviction of Anthony Mycock who had been convicted of a robbery which the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
television programme Rough Justice
Rough Justice
"Rough Justice" is a song written and recorded by English girl group Bananarama. It was the third single released from their self-titled second album in 1984....
argued had never occurred. In his judgment, Lane asserted that there had been a robbery and criticised the programme for "outrageous" interview methods. He regarded such programmes as "mere entertainment".
When the Birmingham Six
Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six were six men—Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 in the United Kingdom for the Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and quashed by the Court of...
were granted permission to appeal in 1987, Lane presided over what was (at six weeks) the longest criminal appeal in English legal history. The judgment, given on January 28, 1988, adopted all the key parts of the Crown case, dismissed defence witnesses as unreliable, and upheld the convictions. Lane concluded by sending a message to the Home Secretary: "As has happened before in References by the Home Secretary to this court, the longer this hearing has gone on the more convinced this court has become that the verdict of the jury was correct." This implied rebuke and invitation not to refer any more questioned cases was criticised by campaigners. Lane initially refused leave to appeal to Winston Silcott
Winston Silcott
Winston Silcott is a British man of Afro-Caribbean descent, who, as one of the "Tottenham Three", was convicted in March 1987 for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock on the night of 6 October 1985 during the Broadwater Farm riot in north London...
, convicted of the murder of Keith Blakelock
Keith Blakelock
The death of PC Keith Blakelock, an officer with the London Metropolitan Police, occurred on 6 October 1985 during rioting on the Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham, north London...
in the midst of a strong campaign of vilification from tabloid newspapers. In his findings he concluded that there was "no lurking doubt" in spite of the flimsiness of the prosecution case. Silcott's conviction for the Blakelock murder was ultimately quashed in 1991.
Unfortunately for Lane, in 1989, the appeal of the Guildford Four
Guildford Four
The Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven were two sets of people whose convictions in English courts for the Guildford pub bombings in the 1970s were eventually quashed...
proved police malpractice conclusively. In this case, Lane overturned the convictions. One observer described his appearance: "The Lord Chief Justice seemed to sniff something nasty in the air. Peering out over half-moon spectacles, Lord Lane's weary face was the mask of Justice embarrassed." Lane refused to free Paul Hill, one of the Four, because of a separate conviction for murder in Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
, although this later turned out also to have been a wrongful conviction.
The Birmingham Six were granted a further appeal (their third) in 1991, when more evidence established that the police evidence at their trial had been fabricated. The Director of Public Prosecutions
Director of Public Prosecutions
The Director of Public Prosecutions is the officer charged with the prosecution of criminal offences in several criminal jurisdictions around the world...
announced before the appeal was held that he no longer considered their convictions safe and satisfactory. Lane did not preside over the appeal which formally cleared them. Their successful appeal lead to calls for Lane to resign, including a hostile editorial in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
and a motion in the House of Commons signed by 140 Members of Parliament
Member of Parliament
A Member of Parliament is a representative of the voters to a :parliament. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, the term applies specifically to members of the lower house, as upper houses often have a different title, such as senate, and thus also have different titles for its members,...
. These, and other cases where convictions were overturned, blighted the end of Lane's tenure as Lord Chief Justice.
Retirement
Despite previous thoughts that he would resign before the end of his time in order to enjoy an active retirement, Lane stayed in office until 1992. Despite remaining in office after the Birmingham Six were released, he nevertheless resigned over a year before he would have been forced to retire at the age of 75. He headed a commission in 1993 which recommended the end of the mandatory life sentence for murderMurder
Murder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
, but otherwise kept a low profile (he never gave press interviews while in office and did not change that policy in his retirement).
He died in 2005 and was buried in the churchyard at St Ippolyts, near Hitchin in Hertfordshire.
External links
- Obituary (BBC NewsBBC NewsBBC News is the department of the British Broadcasting Corporation responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs. The department is the world's largest broadcast news organisation and generates about 120 hours of radio and television output each day, as well as online...
, August 24, 2005) - Obituary (The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, August 23, 2005) - Obituary (The TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, August 24, 2005) - Obituary (The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, August 24, 2005) - Obituary (The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, August 25, 2005)