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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 murder trial. [4]
In 2012, he successfully acted for Paul Chambers, in his appeal over the Twitter Joke Trial. [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 also a broadcaster.[ citation needed ] He is a member of the Bar of England and Wales, and the Australian Bar. He was an honorary president of the League Against Cruel Sports, and he was appointed honorary professor of law at Cardiff University in 2011. [14]
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]
James Brian Edward Hutton, Baron Hutton, PC was a British Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.
Colin Boyd, Baron Boyd of Duncansby, is a Scottish judge who has been a Senator of the College of Justice since June 2012. He was Lord Advocate for Scotland from 24 February 2000 until his resignation on 4 October 2006. On 11 April 2006, Downing Street announced that Colin Boyd would take a seat as a crossbench life peer; however, he took the Labour whip after resigning as Lord Advocate. He was formally introduced in the House of Lords on 3 July 2006. On the day SNP leader Alex Salmond was elected First Minister of Scotland, it was reported that Boyd was quitting the Scottish Bar to become a part-time consultant with public law solicitors Dundas & Wilson. He told the Glasgow Herald, "This is a first. I don't think a Lord Advocate has ever done this—left the Bar and become a solicitor."
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.
Heather Carol Hallett, Baroness Hallett,, is a retired British judge of the Court of Appeal and a crossbench life peer. The first woman to chair the Bar Council and the fifth woman to sit in the Court of Appeal, Hallett led the independent inquest into the 7/7 bombings. In April 2019, she was appointed Chair of the Security Vettings Appeal Panel. In December 2021, she was announced as the chair of the public inquiry into the UK Government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. On 29 June 2022, the Government accepted Baroness Hallett's proposed terms of reference for the inquiry, with minor changes suggested by the devolved administrations.
Frances Margaret Kirkham CBE is a British judge and former member of the Judicial Appointments Commission.
Carl Sargeant was a Welsh politician who was the Cabinet secretaries and ministers Secretary for Communities and Children in the Welsh Government. He represented the constituency of Alyn and Deeside in the National Assembly for Wales from 2003.
Sir Stephen John Sedley is a British lawyer. He worked as a judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales from 1999 to 2011 and was a visiting professor at the University of Oxford from 2011 to 2015.
An inquest is a judicial inquiry in common law jurisdictions, particularly one held to determine the cause of a person's death. Conducted by a judge, jury, or government official, an inquest may or may not require an autopsy carried out by a coroner or medical examiner. Generally, inquests are conducted only when deaths are sudden or unexplained. An inquest may be called at the behest of a coroner, judge, prosecutor, or, in some jurisdictions, upon a formal request from the public. A coroner's jury may be convened to assist in this type of proceeding. Inquest can also mean such a jury and the result of such an investigation. In general usage, inquest is also used to mean any investigation or inquiry.
Azelle Rodney was a London man who was fatally injured by an armed officer of the Metropolitan Police on 30 April 2005. In July 2013, a public inquiry found that the Specialist Firearms Officer who fired the fatal shots, Anthony Long, had "no lawful justification" for killing Rodney. The case was referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to determine whether a prosecution should be launched.
Red Lion Chambers is a UK set of barristers' chambers, specialising in criminal law, formerly known as 18 Red Lion Court.
Sir John Henry Boulton Saunders, formerly styled The Hon. Mr Justice Saunders, is a retired High Court Judge of the King's Bench Division.
Sir Anthony Hooper, PC is a British retired judge, former professor of law, and a member of Matrix Chambers. He joined Matrix Chambers in 2013 after his retirement from the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. In 2013 he was appointed inaugural Judicial Fellow of the Judicial Institute of University College, London, where he is an Honorary Professor. He is an Honorary Fellow at Trinity hall, Cambridge. Since 2018, he has been helping to fight corruption and to reform judicial system in Ukraine.
Sir Martin James Moore-Bick, PC is a retired judge of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.
Doreen Delceita Lawrence, Baroness Lawrence of Clarendon, is a British Jamaican campaigner and the mother of Stephen Lawrence, a black British teenager who was murdered in a racist attack in South East London in 1993. She promoted reforms of the police service and founded the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. She was appointed to the Order of the British Empire for services to community relations in 2003, and was created a life peer in 2013.
Leslie Thomas KC is a British barrister and law professor. He has acted on a number of high-profile death cases and inquests, and is noted as a "star individual" for Police Law (Claimant) work in Chambers and Partners with specialist expertise in cases of death in custody and death at the hands of the police.
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.
On 14 June 2017, a high-rise fire broke out in the 24-storey Grenfell Tower block of flats in North Kensington, West London, at 00:54 BST and burned for 60 hours. Seventy people died at the scene, and two people died later in hospital, with more than 70 injured and 223 escaping. It was the deadliest structural fire in the United Kingdom since the 1988 Piper Alpha oil-platform disaster and the worst UK residential fire since the German Bombings of World War II.
The Grenfell Tower Inquiry is a British public inquiry into the Grenfell Tower fire, which killed 72 people and destroyed Grenfell Tower on 14 June 2017. It was ordered by Prime Minister Theresa May on the day following the fire.
Ian Alexander Macdonald QC was a Scottish barrister who was "a pioneer of committed anti-racist legal practice" in the UK. During the 1970s he appeared in many notable political and human rights cases, including those involving the Mangrove Nine, the Angry Brigade, and the Balcombe Street siege. He took silk in 1988 and was leader of the British bar in immigration law for five decades until his death at the age of 80.
On 11 February 2023, Brianna Ghey, a 16-year-old British transgender girl, was murdered in a premeditated attack by Scarlett Jenkinson and Eddie Ratcliffe. After being lured into Culcheth Linear Park by Jenkinson, Ghey was fatally stabbed.