Louis Blom-Cooper
Encyclopedia
Sir Louis Jacques Blom-Cooper QC
Queen's Counsel
Queen's Counsel , known as King's Counsel during the reign of a male sovereign, are lawyers appointed by letters patent to be one of Her [or His] Majesty's Counsel learned in the law...

 FKC (born 27 March 1926) is an author and UK
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 lawyer
Lawyer
A lawyer, according to Black's Law Dictionary, is "a person learned in the law; as an attorney, counsel or solicitor; a person who is practicing law." Law is the system of rules of conduct established by the sovereign government of a society to correct wrongs, maintain the stability of political...

 specialising in public law and administrative law.

Education

Louis Blom-Cooper was educated at Seaford College
Seaford College
Seaford College is an independent co-educational boarding and day-school located at East Lavington, south of Petworth, West Sussex, England. The College was founded in 1884, and is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference. The college sits in the Lavington Park, in nearly in an...

, King's College London
King's College London
King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...

 (LLB,1952), the University of Amsterdam, and at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge
Fitzwilliam College is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Cambridge in England.The college traces its origins back to 1869 and the foundation of the Non-Collegiate Students Board, a venture intended to offer students from less financially privileged backgrounds a chance to study...

.

Career

He was an academic at the University of London
University of London
-20th century:Shortly after 6 Burlington Gardens was vacated, the University went through a period of rapid expansion. Bedford College, Royal Holloway and the London School of Economics all joined in 1900, Regent's Park College, which had affiliated in 1841 became an official divinity school of the...

 from 1962 to 1984. Prior to this he was a columnist for The Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...

. He was Chair of the Mental Health Act Commission from 1987–1994 and a Judge in the Court of Appeal of Jersey and of Guernsey from 1988-1996.

He has chaired more than a dozen Inquiries over the last decade including the Antiguan Guns to Medalin, and UK Jasmine Beckford and Ashworth Inquiries. He sat as a Deputy High Court Judge on housing and judicial review cases until 1996.

Blom-Cooper is well known for his regulatory work, particularly as Chair of the Press Council (UK) now the Press Complaints Commission
Press Complaints Commission
The Press Complaints Commission is a voluntary regulatory body for British printed newspapers and magazines, consisting of representatives of the major publishers. The PCC is funded by the annual levy it charges newspapers and magazines...

 and later as the founding chair of the premium rate telephony regulator, ICSTIS now PhonepayPlus.

In 1992 he was appointed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
Secretary of State for Northern Ireland
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, informally the Northern Ireland Secretary, is the principal secretary of state in the government of the United Kingdom with responsibilities for Northern Ireland. The Secretary of State is a Minister of the Crown who is accountable to the Parliament of...

 as the first Independent Commissioner for the Holding Centres. He held this appointment until April 1999. He was recently called to the Bar of Northern Ireland and granted Silk in Northern Ireland. He was also counsel to the Saville Inquiry
Bloody Sunday Inquiry
The Bloody Sunday Inquiry, also known as the Saville Inquiry or the Saville Report after its chairman, Lord Saville of Newdigate, was established in 1998 by British Prime Minister Tony Blair after campaigns for a second inquiry by families of those killed and injured in Derry on Bloody Sunday...

 acting for the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association was an organisation which campaigned for equal civil rights for the all the people in Northern Ireland during the late 1960s and early 1970s...

.

The A6 murder, Regina v. James Hanratty

In 1963 Blom-Cooper argued that Hanratty
James Hanratty
James Hanratty , a petty criminal with no history of violence, was the eighth-to-last person in the United Kingdom to be hanged after being convicted of the murder of Michael Gregsten at Deadman's Hill on the A6, near the village of Clophill, Bedfordshire, England, on 23 August 1961...

 was probably guilty. In 2002 modern testing of DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...

 from Hanratty's exhumed corpse convinced Court of Appeal
Court of Appeal of England and Wales
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales is the second most senior court in the English legal system, with only the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom above it...

 judges that his guilt was proved "beyond doubt".

Hunter & Callaghan v Duckworth & Company and Blom-Cooper

The 1997 book The Birmingham Six and Other Cases considered recent miscarriages of justice. It prompted an unsuccessful libel action in the Irish courts from Gerry Hunter and Hugh Callaghan
Birmingham Six
The Birmingham Six were six men—Hugh Callaghan, Patrick Joseph Hill, Gerard Hunter, Richard McIlkenny, William Power and John Walker—sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 in the United Kingdom for the Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and quashed by the Court of...

.

Initially Blom-Cooper argued that the publication of the book in Ireland was outside of his control. When this failed, he relied on European Convention on Human Rights#Article 10 - right to freedom of expression and the newly formulated defence of Qualified privilege
Qualified privilege
The defense of qualified privilege permits persons in positions of authority or trust to make statements or relay or report statements that would be considered slander and libel if made by anyone else...

 - provided good practice was followed it was acceptable to get things wrong. Previously inaccuracy would have led to financial penalty. Despite this, solicitor
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...

 Gareth Peirce
Gareth Peirce
Gareth Peirce is an English solicitor, educated at the Cheltenham Ladies' College, the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics. She is known for her work in high profile cases representing people with Irish and Muslim backgrounds accused of terrorism.-Personal life:Born with the...

 accused Blom-Cooper of "shoddy research" and "total nonsense" in respect of the book.

Campaigner

Blom-Cooper was involved in the foundation of Amnesty International
Amnesty International
Amnesty International is an international non-governmental organisation whose stated mission is "to conduct research and generate action to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights, and to demand justice for those whose rights have been violated."Following a publication of Peter Benenson's...

 in 1961, supporting Peter Benenson
Peter Benenson
Peter Benenson was an English lawyer and the founder of human rights group Amnesty International . In 2001, Benenson received the Pride of Britain Award for Lifetime Achievement.-Biography:...

's idea for an appeal for amnesty for political prisoners. It was at Blom-Cooper's suggestion that Benenson wrote to David Astor
David Astor
Francis David Langhorne Astor CH was an English newspaper publisher and member of the Astor family.-Early life and career:...

, proprieter of the Observer to publicise the campaign. Blom-Cooper also took part in a small committee of individuals who helped carried through the appeal which lead to Amnesty International.

He is also a Patron of Prisoners Abroad
Prisoners Abroad
Prisoners Abroad is a UK-registered charity which supports British citizens who are imprisoned overseas. It also works with ex-prisoners returning to the UK and with families members and friends of those detained. The organisation aims to provide for the basic welfare needs of Britons who are held...

 a registered charity which supports Britons who are held overseas, and is a trustee of the Howard League for Penal Reform
Howard League for Penal Reform
The Howard League for Penal Reform is a London-based registered charity in the United Kingdom. It is the oldest penal reform organisation in the world, named after John Howard. Founded in 1866 as the Howard Association, a merger with the Penal Reform League in 1921 created the Howard League for...

.

Author

Blom-Cooper's published works include
  • Bankruptcy in private international law (1955)
  • The A6 murder, Regina v. James Hanratty: The semblance of truth (1963)
  • The language of the law: An anthology of legal prose (1965)
  • The Hanging Question: Essays on the Death Penalty (1969)
  • Law and Morality (1976)
  • The Case of Jason Mitchell- Report of the Independent Panel of Inquiry; Edited by Louis Blom-Cooper
  • Occupational Therapy -An Emerging Profession in Health Care (1989)
  • The Falling Shadow: One Patient's Mental Health Care 1978-1993 (1995) co-editors Elaine Murphy
    Elaine Murphy, Baroness Murphy
    Elaine Murphy, Baroness Murphy is a British politician and a member of the House of Lords.After qualifying as a doctor and later teaching as an academic in the National Health Service for 25 years, she spent a period as a Health Service general manager between 1984 and 1990 which included the post...

    ; Helen Hally
  • The Birmingham Six and Other Cases (1997) (ISBN 0-7156-2813-5)
  • Law and the Spirit of Inquiry : Essays in Honour of Sir Louis Blom-Cooper QC (1999) co-editors Charles Blake, Gavin Drewry
  • With Malice Aforethought: A Study of the Crime and Punishment for Homicide
  • The Court of Appeal (2007) co-editors Suzanne Fullbrook;Charles Blake
  • The Penalty of Imprisonment: Why 60 Per Cent of the Prison Population Should Not Be There (2008), ISBN 1-84706-153-2

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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