Sir Andrew Nicol | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Justice of the High Court | |
| In office 2009–2021 | |
| Personal details | |
| Born | 9 May 1951 |
| Spouse | Camilla Palmer |
| Children | 2 |
| Alma mater | Selwyn College, Cambridge Harvard Law School Middle Temple |
Sir Andrew George Lindsay Nicol (born 9 May 1951) is a retired judge of the High Court of England and Wales.
He was educated at City of London Freemen's School,[ citation needed ] Selwyn College, Cambridge, and Harvard Law School (LLM). [1] He was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1978 and became a bencher there in 2004. [2] He was made a QC in 1995, deputy judge of the High Court from 2003 to 2009, and judge of the High Court of Justice (Queen's Bench Division) since 2009. He co-wrote Media Law with Geoffrey Robertson. Nicol was quoted as saying: "Trials derive their legitimacy from being conducted in public; the judge presides as a surrogate for the people, who are entitled to see and approve the power exercised on their behalf. Those who assist the prosecution can and should be protected by other means. No matter how fair, justice must still be seen before it can be said to be done". [3] [4]
Nicol was the judge in the trial of consultant surgeon David Sellu in November 2013. Sellu was found guilty of gross negligence manslaughter following the death of a patient under his care, and served 15 months imprisonment of a 30-month sentence. [5] After release, Sellu's appeal against the conviction was successful in 2016. [6] The successful ground for the appeal was that Nicol had failed to instruct the jury properly regarding the grossness element of the offence. [6] [7]
Nicol presided over the 2020 libel suit Depp v News Group Newspapers Ltd , in which Johnny Depp sued British tabloid newspaper The Sun , which had claimed in an article that Depp was a "wife beater". Nicol ruled against Depp, accepting that 12 of 14 alleged accounts of violence committed by Depp against Amber Heard were true. Depp was denied permission to appeal by two judges of the Court of Appeal, who stated that they did not believe there was a real prospect of overturning the findings, and that the hearings had been fair. [8]
In 2022 Depp sued Heard in a separate defamation case in the United States. This case had a different outcome, with the jury finding that Heard had defamed Depp. [9]
Nicol is married to Camilla Palmer; they have two sons. [4]
John Christopher Depp II is an American actor and musician. He is the recipient of multiple accolades, including a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for three Academy Awards and two BAFTA awards. His films, in which he has often played eccentric characters, have grossed over $8 billion worldwide, making him one of Hollywood's most bankable stars.
Corporate manslaughter is a criminal offence in English law, being an act of homicide committed by a company or organisation. In general, in English criminal law, a juristic person is in the same position as a natural person, and may be convicted for committing many offences. The Court of Appeal confirmed in one of the cases following the Herald of Free Enterprise disaster that a company can, in principle, commit manslaughter, although all defendants in that case were acquitted.
Sir David Cozens-Hardy Hirst was an English barrister and judge who served as a Lord Justice of Appeal from 1992 to 1999. The Times described him as "one of the leading advocates of his generation".
In the English law of homicide, manslaughter is a less serious offence than murder, the differential being between levels of fault based on the mens rea or by reason of a partial defence. In England and Wales, a common practice is to prefer a charge of murder, with the judge or defence able to introduce manslaughter as an option. The jury then decides whether the defendant is guilty or not guilty of either murder or manslaughter. On conviction for manslaughter, sentencing is at the judge's discretion, whereas a sentence of life imprisonment is mandatory on conviction for murder. Manslaughter may be either voluntary or involuntary, depending on whether the accused has the required mens rea for murder.
Amber Laura Heard is an American actress. She had her first leading role in the horror film All the Boys Love Mandy Lane (2006), and went on to star in films such as The Ward (2010), Drive Angry (2011), and London Fields (2018). She has also had supporting roles in films including Pineapple Express (2008), Never Back Down (2008), The Joneses (2009), The Rum Diary (2011), Paranoia (2013), Machete Kills (2013), Magic Mike XXL (2015), and The Danish Girl (2015). Heard played Mera in the DC Extended Universe, including the films Justice League (2017), Aquaman (2018) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom (2023). She has also acted in television series such as The CW's teen drama Hidden Palms (2007) and the Paramount+'s fantasy series The Stand (2020).
Sir Thomas Scott Gillespie Baker, PC is a retired English Court of Appeal judge.
Modern libel and slander laws in many countries are originally descended from English defamation law. The history of defamation law in England is somewhat obscure; civil actions for damages seem to have been relatively frequent as far back as the Statute of Gloucester in the reign of Edward I (1272–1307). The law of libel emerged during the reign of James I (1603–1625) under Attorney General Edward Coke who started a series of libel prosecutions. Scholars frequently attribute strict English defamation law to James I's outlawing of duelling. From that time, both the criminal and civil remedies have been found in full operation.
The People of the State of New York v. Harry Croswell, commonly known and cited as People v. Croswell, is an important case in the evolution of United States defamation law. It was a criminal libel case brought against a Federalist journalist named Harry Croswell for his statements about a number of public officials, including then-President Thomas Jefferson.
John Harris Byrne is a retired Australian jurist who previously served as Senior Judge Administrator of the Supreme Court of Queensland. Having been a judge of that court since 1989, he was one of the court's most experienced judges. He was also Chair of the National Judicial College of Australia, a body which provides programs and professional development resources to judicial officers in Australia. He is now a private Commercial Arbitrator.
Justice Henry George Fryberg was a Justice of the Supreme Court of Queensland, Australia.
Daniel John William Wootton is a New Zealand and British journalist and broadcaster.
Sir Michael George Tugendhat, styled The Hon. Mr Justice Tugendhat, and referred to as Tugendhat J in legal writing, is a retired High Court judge in England and Wales. He was the High Court's senior media judge, taking over that role from Mr Justice Eady on 1 October 2010.
Sir Brian Henry Leveson is a retired English judge who served as the President of the Queen's Bench Division and Head of Criminal Justice.
Sir Robin Godfrey Spencer, is a former judge of the High Court of England and Wales.
Sir Christopher James Saunders French was a British barrister and judge who sat on the High Court of Justice. He is most commonly remembered as the judge who sat on the Sellafield cancer litigation, described as "one of the longest, most complicated and most expensive civil actions ever heard before a British court."
Esther Louise Rantzen v Mirror Group Newspapers (1986) Ltd., Brian Radford, Richard Stott and Mirror Group Newspapers plc. [1993] EWCA Civ 16, [1993] 4 All ER 975, also shortened to Rantzen v Mirror Group Newspapers by legal analysts, is a 1993 English defamation court case. The case was brought by the television presenter Esther Rantzen against Mirror Group Newspapers, publisher of The People which had alleged that Rantzen had protected a child abuser after he had given information about child abuse in a school.
Depp v News Group Newspapers Ltd[2020] EWHC 2911 (QB) was a defamation lawsuit brought in England. The case was initiated by American actor Johnny Depp, who sued News Group Newspapers (NGN) and then-executive editor Dan Wootton for libel after The Sun ran an article that claimed Depp had abused his ex-wife and criticised his casting in the Fantastic Beasts film series. The article stated, "Overwhelming evidence was filed to show Johnny Depp engaged in domestic violence against his wife Amber Heard," who "recounted a detailed history of domestic abuse incidents, some of which had led to her fearing for her life." After a three-week trial in London in July 2020, Andrew Nicol, a High Court judge sitting without a jury, rejected Depp's claim in a verdict announced later that year, ruling that the published material was "substantially true".
Sasha Wass KC is a British judge, prosecutor and defender.
John C. Depp, II v. Amber Laura Heard was a trial held in Fairfax County, Virginia, from April 11 to June 1, 2022, that ruled on allegations of defamation between formerly married American actors Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. Depp, as plaintiff, filed a complaint of defamation against defendant Heard claiming $50 million in damages; Heard filed counterclaims against Depp claiming $100 million in damages.
R v Adomako[1994] UKHL 6, was a landmark United Kingdom criminal law case where the required elements to satisfy the legal test for gross negligence manslaughter at common law were endorsed and refined. It was held that in cases of manslaughter by criminal negligence involving a breach of duty the gross negligence test relied on by the Court of Appeal was sufficient and that it was not necessary to direct a jury to consider whether the recklessness definition should be applied. The test, as set out in R v Bateman 19 Cr. App. R.8 and Andrews v DPP [1937] AC 576, confirmed that there needed to be in existence a breach of duty of care where the serious and obvious risk of death was reasonably foreseeable and that the breach or omission in question caused actual death and that the conduct of the defendant, when all the circumstances were considered, was so bad as to amount to a criminal act or omission. The requirement to show that the defendant's breach of duty was "gross" helped develop the definition of gross negligence.