Education-St Joseph’s College, Beulah Hill, London.

Trinity College Cambridge, law degree.

Called to the Bar of England and Wales 1970

His practice included crime, family work, landlord and tenant, but after 1990 he concentrated on environmental work (he prosecuted for local authorities and the Environment Agency), financial services, personal injury, disciplinary tribunals, employment, and general contract and tort. He represented, among others, the successful claimant in Spring v Guardian Assurance (HL), a case which changed the law on references, the Environment Agency in R v Hertfordshire CC ex parte Green Environmental (HL), a case about the obligation in a criminal investigation to respond to questions despite the risk of self-incrimination, and the family of Hospital Patient S (Lady Hale) whose removal from England back to Norway to his wife was disputed by his mistress.

He served as an Assistant Recorder then Recorder from 1990 until 2004 in civil, criminal, and family litigation. As a Recorder, he gave a judgment in a case involving the proper construction of the TUPE regulations where conflicting judicial decisions had been given by other courts. His judgment was reported in the Personal Injury Reports and approved by higher courts.

He was appointed a Circuit Judge for civil and criminal (including a serious sex ticket) work from July 2004 until 2017. In fact, he stayed in the Crown Court throughout. His cases included gun smuggling from the Balkans, bribery of officials in order to obtain contracts, the trafficking of women for prostitution, and the tracing and recovery of criminal assets.

He served as a Deputy Circuit Judge from 2017 to 2022.

He sat as a Chairman of the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal from time to time. From about 2002, he has been involved in lecturing and training judges and lawyers in Poland on mediation. In 2004, he chaired a training exercise for Polish judges who were to report on the introduction of mediation into the Polish Civil Code. He chaired twelve 3-day training sessions in Warsaw for advocates, usually about 40 advocates on each occasion. He is an accredited mediator. He has lectured on money laundering at a seminar for judges in Poland. He was an expert from 2018 to 2020 in the EU Model Court Project in Ukraine, his specific area being the treatment of vulnerable witnesses. For this purpose, he has been to Ukraine on five occasions, making presentations, meeting judges and others involved in their justice system, writing part of a handbook on the model court, and giving interviews.