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Sir Richard McCombe | |
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| Lord Justice of Appeal | |
| In office 26 October 2012 –27 January 2021 | |
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| Born | 23 September 1952 |
Sir Richard George Bramwell McCombe, PC (born 23 September 1952), [1] Is an English barrister and former member of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales.
McCombe attended Sedbergh School and Downing College, Cambridge. [2] He was called to the Bar in 1975 (Lincoln's Inn) and elected a bencher in 1996. He was second junior counsel to the Director-General of Fair Trading from 1982 to 1987, when he became first junior counsel, serving until 1989. The same year, he was made a Queen's Counsel. McCombe and Price Waterhouse executive John Heywood led an investigation into Norton Group, plc for the Department of Trade and Industry. [3]
He became an Assistant Recorder in 1993 and a Recorder in 1996. He was appointed a Deputy High Court judge in 1999. From 1996 to 2001, he served as Attorney-General of the Duchy of Lancaster. He was appointed to the High Court on 11 January 2001, [4] Receiving the customary knighthood, and was assigned to the Queen's Bench Division. He served as Presiding Judge on the Northern Circuit from 2004 to 2007 and Chair of the Association of High Court Judges from 2008 to 2009. [3] On 26 October 2012, he was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal [5] And received the customary appointment to the Privy Council. He retired from the Court of Appeal with effect from 27 January 2021. [6]
In 2011, McCombe passed judgement in the Hookway case, [7] which had a significant effect on bail in England and Wales. The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 stipulations on bail had previously been interpreted to mean that the time limits on holding a prisoner in police custody applied only to the time the prisoner was physically in custody. In the Hookway case, McCombe ruled that the custody time limits included the time the suspect was on bail, effectively limiting the maximum amount of time a suspect could be on bail to 96 hours (less the time spent in the police station). [8] This decision caused significant disruption in the criminal justice system, [9] and drew criticism. Michael Zander called McCombe as "a fool" and a senior police officer described the decision as causing "chaos". [10] The Supreme Court offered to stay the decision ahead of an appeal by the police, but the government instead passed emergency legislation to reverse the change [11] [12] – the Police (Detention and Bail) Act 2011. [13]
He was the presiding judge in the case concerning elderly torture victims in the Mau Mau Uprising, in which McCombe repeatedly ruled in their favour against the British government, paving the way for their eventual compensation. [14] [15] [16] He also presided over the trial of Sharon Matthews and Michael Donovan for the kidnapping of Shannon Matthews in 2008.
Sir Richard is married to Jill Black, Lady Black of Derwent, a former Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom.
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The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt, or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities. Dominated by Kikuyu, Meru and Embu fighters, the KLFA also comprised units of Kamba and Maasai who fought against: the European colonists in Kenya, the British Army, and the local Kenya Regiment.
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A justice of the peace (JP) is a judicial officer of a lower court, elected or appointed by means of a commission to keep the peace. In past centuries the term commissioner of the peace was often used with the same meaning. Depending on the jurisdiction, such justices dispense summary justice or merely deal with local administrative applications in common law jurisdictions. Justices of the peace are appointed or elected from the citizens of the jurisdiction in which they serve, and are usually not required to have any formal legal education in order to qualify for the office. Some jurisdictions have varying forms of training for JPs.
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The Birmingham Six were six Northern Irishmen who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 following their false convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and quashed by the Court of Appeal on 14 March 1991. The six men were later awarded financial compensation ranging from £840,000 to £1.2 million.
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is the principal public agency for conducting criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It is headed by the Director of Public Prosecutions.
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In England and Wales, a magistrates' court is a lower court which hears matters relating to summary offences and some triable either-way matters. Some civil law issues are also decided here, notably family proceedings. In 2010, there were 320 magistrates' courts in England and Wales; by 2020, a decade later, 164 of those had closed. The jurisdiction of magistrates' courts and rules governing them are set out in the Magistrates' Courts Act 1980.
Reggie Barnett Walton is a senior United States district judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He is a former presiding judge of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.
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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.
Caroline Elkins is Professor of History and African and African American Studies at Harvard University, the Thomas Henry Carroll/Ford Foundation Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, Affiliated Professor at Harvard Law School, and the Founding Oppenheimer Faculty Director of Harvard's Center for African Studies.
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Sir Peter Arthur Brian Jackson, PC, styled The Rt Hon Lord Justice Peter Jackson, is an English Appeal Court judge. Previously he was a High Court Judge assigned to the Family Division.
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The Foreign and Commonwealth Office Migrated Archives are a collection of about 20,000 files and other records created by the governments of 37 British colonial dependencies, removed to the UK at independence, and held clandestinely for decades in various repositories in and around London. They came only from territories administered by the Colonial Office, so not from India and other dependencies administered by the India Office and its predecessors, whose records are in the India Office Records at the British Library.
Timothy Francis Carmody is an Australian judge who was the Chief Justice of Queensland between 8 July 2014 and 1 July 2015. His previous roles include work as a police officer, barrister, Queensland Crime Commissioner, Family Court of Australia judge, and Chief Magistrate of the Magistrates Court of Queensland. He also presided over the 2013 Child Protection Commission of Inquiry.
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Kate Blackwell KC is a British barrister. Head of Chambers at Lincoln House Chambers in Manchester, she became a Crown Court Recorder in 2009 and Queen's Counsel in 2012. Blackwell has been described by The Guardian as a ‘no-nonsense prosecutor’.
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