John da Cunha

John Wilfrid da Cunha (6 September 1922 - 12 May 2006) was a British barrister and circuit judge. He was a member of the British delegation to the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.

Da Cunha was born in Manchester. His father, Frank da Cunha, was a GP who came to Manchester from Goa to study and never left. Da Cunha was educated at Stonyhurst and read law at St John's College, Cambridge.

In the Second World War, da Cunha was commissioned into the 23rd Hussars, commanding a tank. He landed at Sword Beach four days after D-Day, but was seriously wounded by shrapnel in an attack on Caen a few weeks later. While he was recuperating, he was seconded by the Judge Advocate General's department and sent as a junior counsel to the British headquarters at Bad Oeyenhausen to assist Group Captain Tony Somerhough in preparing for the war crimes trials. Aged only 23, he was physically sick after opening his first file. Da Cunha persevered, and interviewed survivors and witnesses from German concentration camps. He was particularly closely involved with the Ravensbrück Trials.

Da Cunha took up the legal profession when he returned to England from Germany, being called to the Bar by the Middle Temple in 1948 and becoming a barrister in Manchester in the chambers of Tommy Backhouse. Amongst his pupils were Sir Rhys Davies, Baroness Hale of Richmond and Jonathan Geake. He married in 1953 and had 5 children.

Rather than taking silk, he became a County Court judge in 1970. He sat on Diplock courts in Northern Ireland in 1973, supervising interment without trial under the Northern Ireland Emergency Provision Act, and later as a deputy High Court judge.

In retirement, he was a member of the Parole Board Appeals Tribunal from 1976 to 1978, and a member of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board.

External links

* [http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,60-2205378.html Obituary] , "The Times", 1 June 2006
* [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=1SKMI5KNJ550FQFIQMGCFFWAVCBQUIV0?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/news/2006/07/19/db1902.xml Obituary] , "The Daily Telegraph", 19 July 2006