- Geoffrey Lane, Baron Lane
Geoffrey Dawson Lane, Baron Lane AFC
PC (17 July ,1918 –22 August ,2005 ) was a BritishJudge who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1980 to 1992. The later part of his term was marred by the uncovering of a succession of miscarriages of justice. He will be remembered for his infamous comment, on turning down the first appeal by theBirmingham Six , "the longer this hearing has gone on the more convinced this court has become that the verdict of the jury was correct". After two further appeals, the Birmingham Six were finally cleared in 1991, shortly before Lane retired.Early life
Lane was the son of a bank manager and was born in
Derby . He attendedShrewsbury School andTrinity College, Cambridge where he graduated in the Classical and Law Tripos in 1939. He served as a pilot in theRoyal Air Force duringWorld War II , flying Wellington Bombers for 104 Squadron and later promoted toSquadron Leader to command 233 Squadron, which flew Dakota transport aircraft inD-Day andOperation Market Garden . He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1943. He read for the bar when he wasdemobilised .Legal career
Lane was called to the bar at
Gray's Inn in 1946. He specialised in criminal prosecutions on the Midland and Oxford circuit and 'took silk' in 1962 to become aQueen's Counsel . He prosecuted some of the Great Train robbers in the same year, and he was appointed as Recorder ofBedford , 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, whichLord Parker CJ 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."Judicial office
High Court
Later in 1966, Lane became a full-time Judge of the
Queen's Bench Division (with the customaryKnighthood ), as well as aBencher 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 theStaines 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 Appeal 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 andJulian 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 alife peerage as Baron Lane, of St Ippollitts in the County ofHertfordshire . He had been appointed by the newLord Chancellor , Lord Hailsham, soon afterMargaret Thatcher won the 1979 general election. His appointment was welcomed in the legal profession, where Lane was regarded as a genial figure, 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 asLord 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 Trust . He had served as deputy chairman of theParole Board from 1970 to 1972. After the publication of lengthy interviews with members of thejury in the trial ofJeremy Thorpe , Lane supported moves (later made in theContempt 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 tosolicitor 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 ofcontributory 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 theirrebuttable presumption atcommon 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".Miscarriages of justice
Lane had an early introduction to controversies and disputed convictions when, in 1962, he was the junior Crown counsel in the trial of
James Hanratty for theA6 murder . Hanratty was hanged but disputes over whether he was properly convicted have continued to this day. He also represented theMetropolitan Police at the Brabin inquiry into the conviction and subsequent hanging ofTimothy Evans for the murders at10 Rillington Place in 1950. From the mid-1980s, concern grew. OnDecember 5 ,1985 , Lane quashed the conviction of Anthony Mycock who had been convicted of a robbery which theBBC 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 onJanuary 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 toWinston Silcott , convicted of the murder ofKeith Blakelock in the midst of a strong campaign of vilification from tabloid newspapers. 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." [http://www.guardian.co.uk/Northern_Ireland/Story/0,2763,1409087,00.html] Lane refused to free Paul Hill, one of the Four, because of a separate conviction for murder inNorthern 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.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
murder , 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
* [http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4177310.stm Obituary] (
BBC News ,August 24 ,2005 )
* [http://www.guardian.co.uk/prisons/story/0,7369,1554393,00.html Obituary] ("The Guardian ",August 23 ,2005 )
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/08/24/db2401.xml Obituary] ("The Telegraph",August 24 ,2005 )
* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-1747722,00.html Obituary] ("The Times ",August 24 ,2005 )
* [http://news.independent.co.uk/people/obituaries/article308001.ece Obituary] ("The Independent ",August 25 ,2005 )
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