Education

Winchester College (Scholar)

New College, Oxford (Scholar and Senior Scholar)

Degrees

MA; BCL

Pre-Bar Experience

2/Lt I KRRC (Now Royal Greenjackets): Served Cyrenaica 1956-57

Called to the Bar

1962 (Middle Temple); 1991 (Lincoln’s Inn ad eundem)

Legal Awards

Blackstone Pupillage Price; Harmsworth Major Entrace Exhibition; Harmsworth Scholarship (Middle Temple)

QC

1983

Assistant Recorder

1982

Recorder of the
Crown Court

1985

Professional
Associations

S.E. circuit; London Common Law Bar Association; Technology & Construction Bar Association; Professional Negligence Bar Association

Professional
Committees

Bar Council 1994 — 1996; Chairman Bar Services and Information Technology Committee 1994; Vice-Chairman Finance Committee 1995; 1996

Master of the Bench,
Middle Temple

1991

Head of Chambers

1991 (to date)

Hardwicke Building
New Square Lincoln’s Inn, London WC2A 3SB

Deputy High Court Judge

1993 to date

Authorised as a Silk, invited from time to time, to sit in the High Court of Justice (Queen’s Bench & Chancery Division)

Deputy Official Referee

1995 to date

Now authorised, as a Recorder, to sit as a Deputy judge of the Technology and Construction Court

The Chartered Institute of Arbitrators

1996 ACI Arb.; 1999 MCI Arb.

Other Sittings

i) he has been nominated to act as arbitrator in a major ICC commercial arbitration;

(ii) he has from time to time sat as a Chairman of a Lloyds’ Disciplinary Committee under the Lloyds’ Act 1982 and Bylaws thereunder;

(iii) see especially:
(a) Desert Sun Loan Corporation v Hill (1996) 2 All ER 847; (1996) 5 Bank L.R. 98.

(b) Lloyds’ Bank Plc v Hawkins: Times 9 October 1998 (Judgment 12 August 1998)

Experience at the Bar

A.

He has practised extensively over a wide range of subjects, both as a junior and a leader, and has a wide variety of case expertise.

As a leader, this has been primarily directed at matters concerned with all types of negligence, (in particular construction law, personal injury, medical, valuation, Solicitors, insurance problems generally) and commercial matters.

B.

He has been involved in a number of leading cases concerned with recent developments in the law. In particular: -

i) Economic loss and the relationship between contract and tort:

(a) Nottingham Co-operative Society Limited v Cementation Piling and foundations Limited (1989) QB 71;

(b) Reid v Rush & Tompkins Group Plc (1990) 1 WLR 212

(ii) Personal Injury:

(a) McDermid v Nash Dredging and Reclamation Co Ltd (1986) QB 965; (1987) Ac 900;

(b) Morris v Murray (1991) 2 QB 6; (1991) 1 WLR 1362

(c) Coward v Comex Houlder Diving Ltd Kemp & Kemp M 2-232

(d) Derry v MOD (1999) 11 Admin. LR 1

(iii) Commercial & Property:

(a) Harman v Glencross (1985) Fam. 46; (1986) Fam. 81;

(b) Elpis Maritime Co. Limited v Marti Chartering Co. Inc (1991) 1 Lloyds Rep. 521;

(c) Abbey national Building Society v Cann (1991) 1 AC 56

(iv) Professional Negligence:

(a) Banque Bruxelles Lambert SA v Eagle Star Insurance Co Limited & Ors (1995) QB 375; 73 BLR 46;

He is concerned extensively with professional negligence matters, especially claims involving valuers, solicitors and clinical negligence.

C. Judicial Review and Divisional Court hearings include:

(a) Gatland v Metropolitan Police Commissioner (1968) 2 QB 279;

(b) Hales Containers Ltd v Ealing Borough Council (1970) RTR 335;

(c) Derrick v Cornhill (1970) RTR 341;

(d) C. Gabriel Ltd v Enfield London Borough Council (1971) RTR 265;

(e) Lambeth London Borough Council v Saunders Transport Ltd (1974) RTR 319;

(f) R v Central Criminal Court Ex p. Naraghi & Binji (1980) 2 Cr. App. R(S) 104;

(g) Canterbury City Council v Bern (1981) 44 P & CR 178

D. Taxation Cases:

(a) Crusabridge Investments Ltd. v Casings International Ltd (1979) 54 Tax Cas. 246;

(b) Van Boeckel v Customs & Excise Commissioners (1981) STC 290

E. Media Cases:

He has been involved in leading cases concerned with the relationship of Media and Press to minors’ right and has been involved in cases relating to the rights of minors themselves, in particular, in relation to the Child Abduction and Custody Act 1985 and the Hague Convention, including:

(a) R v Central Independent Television plc (1994) Fam. 192;

(b) Re: R. (A Minor) (1994) Fam. 254

F.

He has also been extensively concerned in advising and drafting in relation to the electricity privatisation legislation on behalf of a well known public electricity supplier (formally Board) and has been involved in advising and conducting litigation in connection with a regulatory body, concerned with the Media, and with consequential applications to the High Court and Court of Appeal in matters of judicial review.

G.

He has been involved in the past in extensive work in the Law of Education, being instructed by one of the main Teachers’ Unions. See, for example: Neale v Hereford and Worcester CC (1985) IRLR 291; (1986) ICR 471. See also: R v London Borough of Lambeth ex p.N (1996) ELR 299.

H.

In the course of 1993, he was instructed to advise on the English Law of Champerty in relation to proceedings in Ireland and Scotland and gave expert evidence on English law in the High Court in Dublin.