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John Gordon Cooper KC (born 15 September 1958 in Wolverhampton) [1] is a British barrister specialising in human rights and criminal law, and a politician.
Cooper is a member of 25 Bedford Row Chambers in London. He specialises in cases of homicide and serious violence, serious fraud and drug offences. He has also acted in cases such as the Jacintha Saldanha inquest, the Duchess of Cambridge prank call case [2] and represented Nicola Edgington during her murder trial. [3] Cooper also represented Thomas Cashman in his trial for the Murder of Olivia Pratt-Korbel in Liverpool. [4]
In 2012 he successfully acted for Paul Chambers in his appeal over the Twitter Joke Trial, a legal case centred on the conviction of a man who posted a joke on Twitter about destroying an airport. [5]
He represented the majority of bereaved families in the Manchester Arena Inquiry (2020-2022). [6] Other inquiries include representing the Labour Opposition Group, as a result of the Grenfell Tower fire. [7]
He advised the London Mayor Sadiq Khan in relation to the 2018 John Worboys judicial review. [8] Other judicial reviews include the cases of the deaths at Deepcut army barracks, [9] of the government weapons inspector David Kelly [10] and the challenge to the government in relation to the Conservative–DUP agreement. [11]
Cooper advised 43 Labour MPs in relation to the 2019 British prorogation controversy.[ citation needed ]
He represented Ian Fitzgibbon in the 2023 Ashley Dale murder trial. [12] He also acted for the defence in the so-called Tik Tok murder trial. [13]
Cooper is a member of the Bar of England and Wales, and the Australian Bar. He was appointed honorary professor of law at Cardiff University in 2011. [14]
John Cooper was Chair of the League Against Cruel Sports from 1996-2012 and President from 2012-2015. [15] [16] [17] During his tenure the Labour Government enacted the Hunting Act 2004 which criminalised hunting with hounds. [18] Cooper also advised on the drafting of the Pet Abduction Act 2024 which increased sentences for those convicted of stealing domestic pets. [19]
He advised Queen guitarist Brian May and his Save Me organisation in their action against a badger cull. [20] Cooper is patron of Born Innocent, a campaigning organisation working for the reform of breed specific legislation in relation to dogs. [21]
Cooper represented the International Fund for Animal Welfare on a number of occasions including in the private prosecution of Clarissa Dickson-Wright for attending hare coursing events. [22] He also contributed to The Link Between Animal Abuse and Human Violence. [23]
Cooper ran for the House of Commons as a candidate for the Labour Party in the 1987 election in North West Surrey and in the 1992 election in Amber Valley. He was a councillor on Watford Borough Council from 1990 to 1994. [1]
Dame Vera Baird is a British barrister and politician who has held roles as a government minister, police and crime commissioner, and Victims' Commissioner for England and Wales.
Annabelle Janet Ewing is a Scottish politician and lawyer who has served as Deputy Presiding Officer of the Scottish Parliament, alongside Liam McArthur, since May 2021. A member of the Scottish National Party (SNP), she has been the Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for the Cowdenbeath constituency since 2016, having previously been an MSP for the Mid Scotland and Fife region from 2011 to 2016.
Liberty, formerly, and still formally, called the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL), is an advocacy group and membership organisation based in the United Kingdom, which challenges unjust laws, protects civil liberties and promotes human rights. It does this through the courts, in Parliament and in the wider community. Liberty also aims to engender a "rights culture" within British society. The NCCL was founded in 1934 by Ronald Kidd and Sylvia Crowther-Smith, motivated by their humanist convictions.
The League Against Cruel Sports, formerly known as the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports, is a UK-based animal welfare charity which campaigns to stop blood sports such as fox hunting, hare and deer hunting; game bird shooting; and animal fighting. The charity helped bring about the Hunting Act 2004 and Protection of Wild Mammals (Scotland) Act 2002, which banned hunting with hounds in England, Wales and Scotland.
Michael Mansfield is an English barrister and head of chambers at Nexus Chambers. He was recently described as "The king of human rights work" by The Legal 500 and as a leading Silk in civil liberties and human rights.
The Hunting Act 2004 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which bans the hunting of most wild mammals with dogs in England and Wales, subject to some strictly limited exemptions; the Act does not cover the use of dogs in the process of flushing out an unidentified wild mammal, nor does it affect drag hunting, where hounds are trained to follow an artificial scent.
Hare coursing is the pursuit of hares with greyhounds and other sighthounds, which chase the hare by sight, not by scent.
George Alfred Carman, QC was an English leading barrister during the 1980s and 1990s. In 1979, he successfully defended the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe after he was charged with conspiracy to murder. Carman had been appointed as a Queen's Counsel (QC) eight years previously. He later appeared in a series of widely publicised criminal cases and libel cases.
Richard Sanderson Keen, Baron Keen of Elie is a British lawyer and Conservative Party politician. He was Advocate General for Scotland from May 2015 until his resignation on 16 September 2020.
John Calvert Griffiths CMG KC SC was the Attorney General of Hong Kong from 1979 to 1983.
David Philip Pannick, Baron Pannick, is a British barrister and a crossbencher in the House of Lords and Blackstone Chambers. He practises primarily in public law and human rights and has argued high profile cases before the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, the Appellate Committee of the House of Lords, the European Court of Justice, and the European Court of Human Rights.
Opposition to hunting is espoused by people or groups who object to the practice of hunting, often seeking anti-hunting legislation and sometimes taking on acts of civil disobedience, such as hunt sabotage. Anti-hunting laws, such as the English Hunting Act 2004, are generally distinguishable from conservation legislation like the American Marine Mammal Protection Act by whether they seek to reduce or prevent hunting for perceived cruelty-related reasons or to regulate hunting for conservation, although the boundaries of distinction are sometimes blurred in specific laws, for example when endangered animals are hunted.
Sir Aubrey Melford Steed Stevenson, PC, usually known as Sir Melford Stevenson, was an English barrister and, later, a High Court judge, whose judicial career was marked by his controversial conduct and outspoken views.
SirKeir Rodney Starmer is a British politician who has served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom since 2024 and as Leader of the Labour Party since 2020. Prior to becoming Prime Minister, Starmer served as Leader of the Opposition from 2020 to 2024. He has been Member of Parliament (MP) for Holborn and St Pancras since 2015, having previously served as Director of Public Prosecutions from 2008 to 2013.
Edmund James Lawson, QC was a prominent English barrister who worked on high-profile cases.
Events from 2005 in England
The Deaths at Deepcut Barracks is a series of incidents that took place involving the deaths in obscure circumstances of five British Army trainee soldiers at the Princess Royal Barracks, Deepcut in the county of Surrey, between 1995 and 2002.
In August 1975, the body of eight-year-old Helen Bailey was found in Great Barr, Birmingham, England. Her death was originally classified as being due to undetermined causes, potentially originating from an "accident or [a] practical joke gone wrong" despite her body being found in a secluded area with her jugular vein severed. The original verdict into Bailey's death was overturned and replaced with one of unlawful killing in 2019.
On 22 August 2022, Olivia Pratt-Korbel, a nine-year-old girl, was shot by Thomas Cashman in Liverpool, England, and was pronounced dead the same day at the city's Alder Hey Children's Hospital. The attack took place at the doorstep of the Pratt-Korbel's family home in Dovecot; the intended target of the attack was Joseph Nee, a 35-year-old gang member who had criminal convictions for drug dealing and burglary. During the attack, Olivia Pratt-Korbel was with her mother. A shot by Cashman passed through her mother's hand and into Olivia Pratt-Korbel's chest.
Richard Simon Hermer, Baron Hermer, is a British barrister and life peer who has served as Attorney General for England and Wales and Advocate General for Northern Ireland since July 2024.
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