Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard
Encyclopedia
Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard (10 April 1877 – 29 May 1971) was Lord Chief Justice of England
from 1946 to 1958 and known for his strict sentencing and conservative views. He was nicknamed the 'Tiger' and "Justice-in-a-jiffy" for his no-nonsense manner. He once dismissed six appeals in one hour in 1957.
, London, the second of three sons and the third of five children.
Goddard attended Marlborough College
, where he decided on a career in law. In later life he vigorously denied the frequent claims of Lord Jowitt
that he had amused his school contemporaries by reciting, word for word, the form of the death sentence upon those whom he disliked. He later attended Trinity College, Oxford
and graduated with a upper second-class degree in jurisprudence
in 1898, and gained a full blue
in athletics. He was called to the Bar
by both the Inner Temple
and Gray's Inn
in 1899.
, with whom he was to have three daughters. She died on 16 May 1928 during an operation at the age of 44. Goddard never remarried.
(a part-time Judgeship) in 1917. Goddard was appointed a King's Counsel in 1923, transferred to be Recorder of Bath in 1925, and eventually Recorder of Plymouth
in 1928. He was elected a Bencher
of his inns in 1929 and undertook work for the Barristers' Benevolent Association. In the general election of 1929
, Goddard agreed, against his better judgement, to contest the Kensington South
constituency as an unofficial Conservative
candidate. The sitting Conservative MP, Sir William Davison
, had been a defendant in a divorce case, and a local committee thought the newly-enfranchised young women voters would refuse to support him. In the end, Goddard, running under the slogan "Purity Goddard", came last in the poll, winning only 15% of the vote, and the sitting member was returned.
. Goddard was known for turning out well-argued and legally convincing judgments. He would deliver stern diatribes to criminals, but his sentences were usually moderate, even if when he was personally offended by the crime. After another six-year stint, he was appointed as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
upon the death of Lord Atkin in 1944 and received as a Law lord a life peerage. He chose the title Baron Goddard of Aldbourne
in the County of Wiltshire
.
, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
, suffered a stroke in 1945 and suddenly resigned, creating a vacancy at an inopportune moment. The tradition was for the appointment to be a political one, with the Attorney-General
stepping up to take it. However, Hartley Shawcross was unwilling and considered too young. The appointment of a stop-gap candidate was expected. As Goddard explained in an August 1970 interview with David Yallop
: "They had to give the job to somebody. There wasn't anybody else available, so Attlee
appointed me." The appointment, in January 1946, came at a time when the crime rate, and public concern over crime, were both increasing. Through his judgments, Goddard made it clear that he felt that stronger sentences were the way to tackle both. However, though a severe judge, Goddard was known to give young offenders probation rather than custodial sentences, if he believed that they would respond. Goddard was the first Lord Chief Justice to hold a law degree.
Despite his appointment as a stop-gap, Goddard served twelve and a half years as Lord Chief Justice before stepping down in August 1958.
, accused of the murder of PC Sidney Miles at a Croydon
warehouse on 2 November 1952. 16-year-old Craig had apparently shot and killed PC Miles whilst resisting arrest on the roof of a factory he intended to break into. Bentley, who was 19 but of limited intelligence, had gone with him and was accused of urging Craig to shoot, having called out to him, "let him have it, Chris", when a policeman, Sergeant
Frederick Fairfax, asked Craig for the gun. Fairfax was wounded by Craig.
Lord Goddard directed the jury at the trial that, in law, Bentley was as guilty of firing the shot as Craig, even though there was contradictory evidence as to whether Bentley was aware that Craig was carrying a gun, and ballistics evidence doubting whether Craig could have hit PC Miles. During the trial, Goddard made no reference to Bentley's mental state, apart from when Christmas Humphreys
asked Bentley to read a statement he had allegedly made to Police Officers after his arrest. Goddard told Humphreys that Bentley couldn't read.
After 75 minutes of deliberations, the jury returned a guilty verdict in respect of both defendants. Craig was too young for a death sentence, but Bentley was not. Nevertheless, the jury had exceptionally returned a plea of mercy
in favour of Bentley along with the guilty verdict. The decision passed to the Home Secretary
, David Maxwell Fyfe, to decide whether clemency should be granted. After reading Home Office psychiatric reports and a petition signed by 200 MPs, he rejected the request and Bentley was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint
on 28 January 1953. Craig was sent to prison and released in 1963 after serving ten-and-a-half years.
, Chairman of the Labour Party
, attempted unsuccessfully to sue the Daily Express
for damages when it quoted him as saying that the party must take power "even if it means violence".
On 13 June 1965, Goddard told Harold Laski's brother, Neville Laski
, that he was opposed to the jury's findings at his brother's libel action case, and that he believed his brother, but that Harold Laski did not make a good witness in court. Goddard also said that he regretted the way in which he had conducted the trial.
In 1948 backbench pressure in the House of Commons forced through an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to the effect that capital punishment should be suspended for five years and all death sentences automatically commuted to life imprisonment. The Bill also sought to abolish judicial corporal punishment
in both its then forms, the cat-o'-nine-tails and the birch
. Goddard attacked the Bill in the House of Lords, making his maiden speech
, saying he agreed with the abolition of, the "cat", but not birching, which he regarded as an effective punishment for young offenders. He also disagreed with the automatic commutation of death sentences, believing that it was contrary to the Bill of Rights
.
In a debate, he once referred to a case he had tried of an agricultural labourer who had assaulted a jeweller; Goddard gave him a short two months' imprisonment and twelve strokes of the birch because "I was not then depriving the country of the services of a good agricultural labourer over the harvest". The suspension of capital punishment was reversed by 181 to 28, and a further amendment to retain the birch was also passed (though the Lords were later forced to give way on this issue). As the crime rate continued to rise, Goddard became convinced that the Criminal Justice Act 1948 was responsible as it was a 'Gangster's Charter'. He held a strong belief that punishment had to be punitive in order to be effective, a view also shared at
the time by Lord Denning.
Dr John Bodkin Adams
in January 1957, Goddard was seen dining with the defendant's probable gay lover, Sir Roland Gwynne
(Mayor of Eastbourne from 1929 to 1931), and ex-Attorney-General Hartley Shawcross at an hotel in Lewes
. Goddard had already appointed Patrick Devlin
to try Adams's case. Three months later, on 15 April, while the jury was out discussing the verdict on Adams's first charge of murder, Goddard telephoned to Devlin to urge him, if Adams were found not guilty, to grant Adams bail before he was tried on a second count of murder. Devlin was surprised since a person accused of murder had never been given bail before in British legal history.
Adams was acquitted on the first count of murder, and the second charge was controversially dropped via a nolle prosequi
– an act by the prosecution that was later called by Devlin an "abuse of process". Adams was thought by pathologist Francis Camps
to have murdered up to 163 patients. Historian Pamela Cullen has suspected political interference.
A month after Adams' trial, on 10 May 1957, Goddard heard a contempt of court
case against Rolls House Publishing, publishers of Newsweek
, and chain of newsagents W.H. Smith, who on 1 April during Adams's trial had respectively published and distributed an issue of the magazine containing two paragraphs of material "highly prejudicial to the accused", saying that Adams's victim count could be "as high as 400". Each company was fined £50. Goddard made no mention of his friendship with Roland Gwynne and the potential conflict of interest
.
After retiring as Lord Chief Justice, Goddard continued to intervene occasionally in Lords debates and public speeches to put forward his views in favour of judicial corporal punishment
. On 12 December 1960 he said in the House of Lords that the law was too much biased in favour of the criminal, as he was to assert to David Yallop nearly ten years later. Goddard also expressed his opposition to the legalisation of homosexual acts
on 24 May 1965. His last-ever speech in the House of Lords was in April 1968 at the age of 91, praising the City of London's law courts.
and Bentley thus cleared, asked Goddard about Derek Bentley's execution, he received the following reply, "Yes, I thought that Bentley was going to be reprieved. He certainly should have been. There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Bentley should have been reprieved".
Goddard remarked that what troubled him was not Bentley being hanged when he was close to the minimum age, but the hard facts of the case, such as Bentley being innocent of the murder of PC Miles.
Goddard went on to slam David Maxwell Fyfe in the two hour interview, saying that "Bentley's execution was an act of supreme illogicality. I was never consulted over it (the decision and execution). In fact he (Maxwell Fyfe) never consulted anyone. The blame for Bentley's execution rests solely with Fyfe". It is true that Maxwell Fyfe, who died in January 1967, was as much a supporter of the death penalty as Goddard. However, despite stating his opposition to Bentley's execution, Goddard still expressed his strong support for the death penalty and asserted that the law was biased in favour of the criminal, as he did almost ten years before.
Whether Goddard felt this at the time of Bentley's execution, or was saying it only in hindsight, remains controversial. Goddard's claims in the 1970 interview were disputed by John Parris in his book "Scapegoat" (Duckworth), published in 1991. Parris, who died in 1996, was Craig's barrister at the 1952 trial, and wrote that Goddard told Maxwell Fyfe to ignore the jury's recommendation for mercy, and that Bentley must be hanged.
Lord Bingham also, however, acknowledged that Goddard was "one of the outstanding criminal judges of the century", and underlined the change in social standards between 1953 and 1998.
After Goddard's death, he was attacked in the columns of The Times
by Bernard Levin
, who described him as "a calamity" and accused him of vindictiveness and of being a malign influence on penal reform. Levin had also attacked Goddard when he retired as Lord Chief Justice thirteen years earlier in a Spectator
article, saying he walked hand in hand with ignorance on one side of him and barbarism on the other. In The Times on 8 June 1971, Levin wrote (referring to Goddard's assertion in 1970 that he had been "very unhappy" about Bentley being hanged) that "if Goddard did indeed claim this, it was a breathtaking piece of hypocrisy, in view of his conduct of the case". Afterwards Levin was blackballed by the Garrick Club
, a favourite resort of both lawyers and journalists, when his application for membership came up.
To balance this criticism there is the appeal case of Daly v Cannon, presided over by Lord Goddard in 1954. A rag and bone man
in Ilford gave gifts to children to bring out recyclable material. For fear of spreading disease it was made unlawful for rag and bone men to give 'articles' to children. Mr Cannon circumvented this by giving the children goldfish by placing them in water filled jars that the children had to provide (and by doing so avoided the public health risk of handing them articles). Mr Daly, the Chief Sanitary Inspector for the local council, tried to prosecute him but the magistrates threw out the case on the grounds that a goldfish was not an article. Mr Daly appealed. Mr Cannon did not seem to be able to afford counsel for the appeal, so he sent a letter of apology to the Appeal Court in case he was found to have done something wrong. Lord Goddard agreed with the magistrates that a goldfish was not an article and dismissed the appeal. If he was vindictive, he did not show it in this case. This case was relatively trivial and did not involve capital punishment, however.
in the film Let him have it
in 1991.
It has been claimed that Goddard had a particular personal reaction to sentencing people to death. According to his valet, Goddard would have an orgasm
during sentencing and his trousers had to be sent off to be cleaned as a result.
Another version suggests Goddard reacted in this way when sentencing young men to be birched.
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary and President of the Courts of England and Wales. Historically, he was the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, but that changed as a result of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005,...
from 1946 to 1958 and known for his strict sentencing and conservative views. He was nicknamed the 'Tiger' and "Justice-in-a-jiffy" for his no-nonsense manner. He once dismissed six appeals in one hour in 1957.
Early life
Rayner Goddard was born on 10 April 1877 at Bassett Road, Notting HillNotting Hill
Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
, London, the second of three sons and the third of five children.
Goddard attended Marlborough College
Marlborough College
Marlborough College is a British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils, located in Marlborough, Wiltshire.Founded in 1843 for the education of the sons of Church of England clergy, the school now accepts both boys and girls of all beliefs. Currently there are just over 800...
, where he decided on a career in law. In later life he vigorously denied the frequent claims of Lord Jowitt
William Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt
William Allen Jowitt, 1st Earl Jowitt PC, KC , was a British Labour politician and lawyer, who served as Lord High Chancellor of Great Britain under Clement Attlee from 1945 to 1951.-Background and education:...
that he had amused his school contemporaries by reciting, word for word, the form of the death sentence upon those whom he disliked. He later attended Trinity College, Oxford
Trinity College, Oxford
The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope , or Trinity College for short, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England. It stands on Broad Street, next door to Balliol College and Blackwells bookshop,...
and graduated with a upper second-class degree in jurisprudence
Jurisprudence
Jurisprudence is the theory and philosophy of law. Scholars of jurisprudence, or legal theorists , hope to obtain a deeper understanding of the nature of law, of legal reasoning, legal systems and of legal institutions...
in 1898, and gained a full blue
University Sporting Blue
A Blue is an award earned by sportsmen and women at a university and some schools for competition at the highest level. The awarding of Blues began at Oxford and Cambridge Universities...
in athletics. He was called to the Bar
Bar (law)
Bar in a legal context has three possible meanings: the division of a courtroom between its working and public areas; the process of qualifying to practice law; and the legal profession.-Courtroom division:...
by both the Inner Temple
Inner Temple
The Honourable Society of the Inner Temple, commonly known as Inner Temple, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
and Gray's Inn
Gray's Inn
The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court in London. To be called to the Bar and practise as a barrister in England and Wales, an individual must belong to one of these Inns...
in 1899.
Marriage
On 31 May 1906 Goddard married Marie Schuster, the daughter of the banker Sir Felix Otto SchusterFelix Schuster
Sir Felix Schuster, Bt. was a British banker and financier.-Biography:He was educated at Frankfurt-am-Main, Geneva, and Owens College, Manchester; and then went into business in London...
, with whom he was to have three daughters. She died on 16 May 1928 during an operation at the age of 44. Goddard never remarried.
A career in the law
He built a strong reputation in commercial cases on the Western Circuit and was appointed as Recorder of PoolePoole
Poole is a large coastal town and seaport in the county of Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester, and Bournemouth adjoins Poole to the east. The Borough of Poole was made a unitary authority in 1997, gaining administrative independence from Dorset County Council...
(a part-time Judgeship) in 1917. Goddard was appointed a King's Counsel in 1923, transferred to be Recorder of Bath in 1925, and eventually Recorder of Plymouth
Plymouth
Plymouth is a city and unitary authority area on the coast of Devon, England, about south-west of London. It is built between the mouths of the rivers Plym to the east and Tamar to the west, where they join Plymouth Sound...
in 1928. He was elected a Bencher
Bencher
A bencher or Master of the Bench is a senior member of an Inn of Court in England and Wales. Benchers hold office for life once elected. A bencher can be elected while still a barrister , in recognition of the contribution that the barrister has made to the life of the Inn or to the law...
of his inns in 1929 and undertook work for the Barristers' Benevolent Association. In the general election of 1929
United Kingdom general election, 1929
-Seats summary:-References:*F. W. S. Craig, British Electoral Facts: 1832-1987*-External links:***...
, Goddard agreed, against his better judgement, to contest the Kensington South
Kensington South (UK Parliament constituency)
Kensington South was a parliamentary constituency centred on the Kensington district of west London. It returned one Member of Parliament to the House of Commons of the Parliament of the United Kingdom....
constituency as an unofficial Conservative
Conservative Party (UK)
The Conservative Party, formally the Conservative and Unionist Party, is a centre-right political party in the United Kingdom that adheres to the philosophies of conservatism and British unionism. It is the largest political party in the UK, and is currently the largest single party in the House...
candidate. The sitting Conservative MP, Sir William Davison
William Davison, 1st Baron Broughshane
William Henry Davison, 1st Baron Broughshane KBE FSA JP DL was a British peer and Conservative Member of Parliament for Kensington South for twenty-four years....
, had been a defendant in a divorce case, and a local committee thought the newly-enfranchised young women voters would refuse to support him. In the end, Goddard, running under the slogan "Purity Goddard", came last in the poll, winning only 15% of the vote, and the sitting member was returned.
Judicial appointment
On 5 April 1932 Goddard was appointed a full-time Judge of the King's Bench Division of the High Court of England and Wales, receiving a knighthood later that year. After only six years he was promoted again to be a Lord Justice of AppealCourt 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...
. Goddard was known for turning out well-argued and legally convincing judgments. He would deliver stern diatribes to criminals, but his sentences were usually moderate, even if when he was personally offended by the crime. After another six-year stint, he was appointed as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary
Judicial functions of the House of Lords
The House of Lords, in addition to having a legislative function, historically also had a judicial function. It functioned as a court of first instance for the trials of peers, for impeachment cases, and as a court of last resort within the United Kingdom. In the latter case the House's...
upon the death of Lord Atkin in 1944 and received as a Law lord a life peerage. He chose the title Baron Goddard of Aldbourne
Aldbourne
Aldbourne is a village and civil parish about northeast of Marlborough in Wiltshire, England. It is in a valley in the south slope of the Lambourn Downs, part of the North Wessex Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty...
in the County of Wiltshire
Wiltshire
Wiltshire is a ceremonial county in South West England. It is landlocked and borders the counties of Dorset, Somerset, Hampshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Berkshire. It contains the unitary authority of Swindon and covers...
.
Lord Chief Justice
Viscount CaldecoteThomas Inskip, 1st Viscount Caldecote
Thomas Walker Hobart Inskip, 1st Viscount Caldecote CBE, PC, KC was a British politician who served in many legal posts, culminating in serving as Lord Chancellor from 1939 until 1940...
, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales
The Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales is the head of the judiciary and President of the Courts of England and Wales. Historically, he was the second-highest judge of the Courts of England and Wales, after the Lord Chancellor, but that changed as a result of the Constitutional Reform Act 2005,...
, suffered a stroke in 1945 and suddenly resigned, creating a vacancy at an inopportune moment. The tradition was for the appointment to be a political one, with the Attorney-General
Attorney General for England and Wales
Her Majesty's Attorney General for England and Wales, usually known simply as the Attorney General, is one of the Law Officers of the Crown. Along with the subordinate Solicitor General for England and Wales, the Attorney General serves as the chief legal adviser of the Crown and its government in...
stepping up to take it. However, Hartley Shawcross was unwilling and considered too young. The appointment of a stop-gap candidate was expected. As Goddard explained in an August 1970 interview with David Yallop
David Yallop
David Anthony Yallop is an agnostic British author who writes chiefly about unsolved crimes. In the 1970s he also contributed scripts for a number of BBC comedy shows...
: "They had to give the job to somebody. There wasn't anybody else available, so Attlee
Clement Attlee
Clement Richard Attlee, 1st Earl Attlee, KG, OM, CH, PC, FRS was a British Labour politician who served as the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1945 to 1951, and as the Leader of the Labour Party from 1935 to 1955...
appointed me." The appointment, in January 1946, came at a time when the crime rate, and public concern over crime, were both increasing. Through his judgments, Goddard made it clear that he felt that stronger sentences were the way to tackle both. However, though a severe judge, Goddard was known to give young offenders probation rather than custodial sentences, if he believed that they would respond. Goddard was the first Lord Chief Justice to hold a law degree.
Despite his appointment as a stop-gap, Goddard served twelve and a half years as Lord Chief Justice before stepping down in August 1958.
ID Cards
In June 1951, Goddard ruled in Willcock v Muckle that giving police the power to demand an ID card "from all and sundry, for instance, from a lady who may leave her car outside a shop longer than she should", made people resentful of the police and "inclines them to obstruct the police instead of to assist them." Therefore, for the police to demand that individuals show their ID cards was unlawful because it was not relevant to the purposes for which the card was adopted. ID Cards, in force since the start of World War II, were abolished in February 1952.Craig and Bentley
In December 1952 Goddard presided over the trial of Christopher Craig and Derek BentleyDerek Bentley
Derek William Bentley was a British teenager hanged for the murder of a police officer, committed in the course of a burglary attempt. The murder of the police officer was committed by a friend and accomplice of Bentley's, Christopher Craig, then aged 16. Bentley was convicted as a party to the...
, accused of the murder of PC Sidney Miles at a Croydon
Croydon
Croydon is a town in South London, England, located within the London Borough of Croydon to which it gives its name. It is situated south of Charing Cross...
warehouse on 2 November 1952. 16-year-old Craig had apparently shot and killed PC Miles whilst resisting arrest on the roof of a factory he intended to break into. Bentley, who was 19 but of limited intelligence, had gone with him and was accused of urging Craig to shoot, having called out to him, "let him have it, Chris", when a policeman, Sergeant
Sergeant
Sergeant is a rank used in some form by most militaries, police forces, and other uniformed organizations around the world. Its origins are the Latin serviens, "one who serves", through the French term Sergent....
Frederick Fairfax, asked Craig for the gun. Fairfax was wounded by Craig.
Lord Goddard directed the jury at the trial that, in law, Bentley was as guilty of firing the shot as Craig, even though there was contradictory evidence as to whether Bentley was aware that Craig was carrying a gun, and ballistics evidence doubting whether Craig could have hit PC Miles. During the trial, Goddard made no reference to Bentley's mental state, apart from when Christmas Humphreys
Christmas Humphreys
Travers Christmas Humphreys, QC was a British barrister who prosecuted several controversial cases in the 1940s and 1950s, and later became a judge at the Old Bailey. He was an enthusiastic Shakespeare scholar and proponent of the Oxfordian theory...
asked Bentley to read a statement he had allegedly made to Police Officers after his arrest. Goddard told Humphreys that Bentley couldn't read.
After 75 minutes of deliberations, the jury returned a guilty verdict in respect of both defendants. Craig was too young for a death sentence, but Bentley was not. Nevertheless, the jury had exceptionally returned a plea of mercy
Mercy
Mercy is broad term that refers to benevolence, forgiveness and kindness in a variety of ethical, religious, social and legal contexts.The concept of a "Merciful God" appears in various religions from Christianity to...
in favour of Bentley along with the guilty verdict. The decision passed to the Home Secretary
Home Secretary
The Secretary of State for the Home Department, commonly known as the Home Secretary, is the minister in charge of the Home Office of the United Kingdom, and one of the country's four Great Offices of State...
, David Maxwell Fyfe, to decide whether clemency should be granted. After reading Home Office psychiatric reports and a petition signed by 200 MPs, he rejected the request and Bentley was hanged by Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint
Albert Pierrepoint is the most famous member of the family which provided three of the United Kingdom's official hangmen in the first half of the 20th century...
on 28 January 1953. Craig was sent to prison and released in 1963 after serving ten-and-a-half years.
Political context
Goddard chose to continue his involvement with trials on the frontline, and opted to judge ordinary High Court cases as he was entitled to do. He presided over the 1946 libel trial at which Harold LaskiHarold Laski
Harold Joseph Laski was a British Marxist, political theorist, economist, author, and lecturer, who served as the chairman of the Labour Party during 1945-1946, and was a professor at the LSE from 1926 to 1950....
, Chairman of the Labour Party
Labour Party (UK)
The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...
, attempted unsuccessfully to sue the Daily Express
Daily Express
The Daily Express switched from broadsheet to tabloid in 1977 and was bought by the construction company Trafalgar House in the same year. Its publishing company, Beaverbrook Newspapers, was renamed Express Newspapers...
for damages when it quoted him as saying that the party must take power "even if it means violence".
On 13 June 1965, Goddard told Harold Laski's brother, Neville Laski
Neville Laski
Neville Jonas Laski, QC was an English judge and leader of Anglo-Jewry.- Family :He came from a distinguished family. His younger brother was Harold Laski...
, that he was opposed to the jury's findings at his brother's libel action case, and that he believed his brother, but that Harold Laski did not make a good witness in court. Goddard also said that he regretted the way in which he had conducted the trial.
In 1948 backbench pressure in the House of Commons forced through an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to the effect that capital punishment should be suspended for five years and all death sentences automatically commuted to life imprisonment. The Bill also sought to abolish judicial corporal punishment
Judicial corporal punishment
Judicial corporal punishment refers to the infliction of corporal punishment as a result of a sentence by a court of law. The punishment can be flogging, caning, birching, whipping, or strapping...
in both its then forms, the cat-o'-nine-tails and the birch
Birching
Birching is a corporal punishment with a birch rod, typically applied to the recipient's bare buttocks, although occasionally to the back and/or shoulders.-Implement:...
. Goddard attacked the Bill in the House of Lords, making his maiden speech
Maiden speech
A maiden speech is the first speech given by a newly elected or appointed member of a legislature or parliament.Traditions surrounding maiden speeches vary from country to country...
, saying he agreed with the abolition of, the "cat", but not birching, which he regarded as an effective punishment for young offenders. He also disagreed with the automatic commutation of death sentences, believing that it was contrary to the Bill of Rights
Bill of Rights 1689
The Bill of Rights or the Bill of Rights 1688 is an Act of the Parliament of England.The Bill of Rights was passed by Parliament on 16 December 1689. It was a re-statement in statutory form of the Declaration of Right presented by the Convention Parliament to William and Mary in March 1689 ,...
.
In a debate, he once referred to a case he had tried of an agricultural labourer who had assaulted a jeweller; Goddard gave him a short two months' imprisonment and twelve strokes of the birch because "I was not then depriving the country of the services of a good agricultural labourer over the harvest". The suspension of capital punishment was reversed by 181 to 28, and a further amendment to retain the birch was also passed (though the Lords were later forced to give way on this issue). As the crime rate continued to rise, Goddard became convinced that the Criminal Justice Act 1948 was responsible as it was a 'Gangster's Charter'. He held a strong belief that punishment had to be punitive in order to be effective, a view also shared at
the time by Lord Denning.
Bodkin Adams case
During the committal hearing for the suspected serial killerSerial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
Dr John Bodkin Adams
John Bodkin Adams
John Bodkin Adams was an Irish-born British general practitioner, convicted fraudster and suspected serial killer. Between the years 1946 and 1956, more than 160 of his patients died in suspicious circumstances. Of these, 132 left him money or items in their will. He was tried and acquitted for...
in January 1957, Goddard was seen dining with the defendant's probable gay lover, Sir Roland Gwynne
Roland Gwynne
Lieutenant-Colonel Sir Roland Vaughan Gwynne, DSO, DL, JP was Mayor of Eastbourne, Sussex, from 1928 to 1931. He was also a patient and close friend of the suspected serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams.-Childhood:...
(Mayor of Eastbourne from 1929 to 1931), and ex-Attorney-General Hartley Shawcross at an hotel in Lewes
Lewes
Lewes is the county town of East Sussex, England and historically of all of Sussex. It is a civil parish and is the centre of the Lewes local government district. The settlement has a history as a bridging point and as a market town, and today as a communications hub and tourist-oriented town...
. Goddard had already appointed Patrick Devlin
Patrick Devlin, Baron Devlin
Patrick Arthur Devlin, Baron Devlin, PC was a British lawyer, judge and jurist. He wrote a report on Britain's involvement in Nyasaland in 1959...
to try Adams's case. Three months later, on 15 April, while the jury was out discussing the verdict on Adams's first charge of murder, Goddard telephoned to Devlin to urge him, if Adams were found not guilty, to grant Adams bail before he was tried on a second count of murder. Devlin was surprised since a person accused of murder had never been given bail before in British legal history.
Adams was acquitted on the first count of murder, and the second charge was controversially dropped via a nolle prosequi
Nolle prosequi
Nolle prosequi is legal term of art and a Latin legal phrase meaning "to be unwilling to pursue", a phrase amounting to "please do not prosecute". It is a phrase used in many common law criminal prosecution contexts to describe a prosecutor's decision to voluntarily discontinue criminal charges...
– an act by the prosecution that was later called by Devlin an "abuse of process". Adams was thought by pathologist Francis Camps
Francis Camps
Francis Edward Camps, FRCP, FRCpath was a famous English pathologist notable for his work on the cases of serial killer John Christie and suspected serial killer John Bodkin Adams.-Early life and training:...
to have murdered up to 163 patients. Historian Pamela Cullen has suspected political interference.
A month after Adams' trial, on 10 May 1957, Goddard heard a contempt of court
Contempt of court
Contempt of court is a court order which, in the context of a court trial or hearing, declares a person or organization to have disobeyed or been disrespectful of the court's authority...
case against Rolls House Publishing, publishers of Newsweek
Newsweek
Newsweek is an American weekly news magazine published in New York City. It is distributed throughout the United States and internationally. It is the second-largest news weekly magazine in the U.S., having trailed Time in circulation and advertising revenue for most of its existence...
, and chain of newsagents W.H. Smith, who on 1 April during Adams's trial had respectively published and distributed an issue of the magazine containing two paragraphs of material "highly prejudicial to the accused", saying that Adams's victim count could be "as high as 400". Each company was fined £50. Goddard made no mention of his friendship with Roland Gwynne and the potential conflict of interest
Conflict of interest
A conflict of interest occurs when an individual or organization is involved in multiple interests, one of which could possibly corrupt the motivation for an act in the other....
.
Retirement
In January 1959, five months after retiring as Lord Chief Justice, Goddard resumed regular judicial sittings in the House of Lords, continuing until 1963 when he fully retired. During this period he was a member of the judicial committee of the House of Lords in several controversial appeal cases, including Director of Public Prosecutions v Smith (1961), Sykes v Director of Public Prosecutions (1962), and Attorney-General for Northern Ireland v Gallagher (1963). In April 1959 Goddard took the unprecedented step of returning to sit in the Court of Appeal for almost a year to help clear a backlog of appeal cases.After retiring as Lord Chief Justice, Goddard continued to intervene occasionally in Lords debates and public speeches to put forward his views in favour of judicial corporal punishment
Judicial corporal punishment
Judicial corporal punishment refers to the infliction of corporal punishment as a result of a sentence by a court of law. The punishment can be flogging, caning, birching, whipping, or strapping...
. On 12 December 1960 he said in the House of Lords that the law was too much biased in favour of the criminal, as he was to assert to David Yallop nearly ten years later. Goddard also expressed his opposition to the legalisation of homosexual acts
Homosexuality
Homosexuality is romantic or sexual attraction or behavior between members of the same sex or gender. As a sexual orientation, homosexuality refers to "an enduring pattern of or disposition to experience sexual, affectional, or romantic attractions" primarily or exclusively to people of the same...
on 24 May 1965. His last-ever speech in the House of Lords was in April 1968 at the age of 91, praising the City of London's law courts.
August 1970 Interview
In the final interview he ever gave, in August 1970, Goddard told David Yallop that being Lord Chief Justice was not an easy job. When Yallop, who believed that Craig should have been imprisoned for manslaughterManslaughter
Manslaughter is a legal term for the killing of a human being, in a manner considered by law as less culpable than murder. The distinction between murder and manslaughter is said to have first been made by the Ancient Athenian lawmaker Dracon in the 7th century BC.The law generally differentiates...
and Bentley thus cleared, asked Goddard about Derek Bentley's execution, he received the following reply, "Yes, I thought that Bentley was going to be reprieved. He certainly should have been. There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Bentley should have been reprieved".
Goddard remarked that what troubled him was not Bentley being hanged when he was close to the minimum age, but the hard facts of the case, such as Bentley being innocent of the murder of PC Miles.
Goddard went on to slam David Maxwell Fyfe in the two hour interview, saying that "Bentley's execution was an act of supreme illogicality. I was never consulted over it (the decision and execution). In fact he (Maxwell Fyfe) never consulted anyone. The blame for Bentley's execution rests solely with Fyfe". It is true that Maxwell Fyfe, who died in January 1967, was as much a supporter of the death penalty as Goddard. However, despite stating his opposition to Bentley's execution, Goddard still expressed his strong support for the death penalty and asserted that the law was biased in favour of the criminal, as he did almost ten years before.
Whether Goddard felt this at the time of Bentley's execution, or was saying it only in hindsight, remains controversial. Goddard's claims in the 1970 interview were disputed by John Parris in his book "Scapegoat" (Duckworth), published in 1991. Parris, who died in 1996, was Craig's barrister at the 1952 trial, and wrote that Goddard told Maxwell Fyfe to ignore the jury's recommendation for mercy, and that Bentley must be hanged.
Criticism
On 30 July 1998, the Court of Appeal granted a posthumous acquittal to Derek Bentley on the basis of Goddard's misdirection to the jury which, according to Lord Bingham, "must [...] have driven the jury to conclude that they had little choice but to convict." He added that the summing-up of the case was "such as to deny the appellant [Bentley] the fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen".Lord Bingham also, however, acknowledged that Goddard was "one of the outstanding criminal judges of the century", and underlined the change in social standards between 1953 and 1998.
After Goddard's death, he was attacked in the columns of The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
by Bernard Levin
Bernard Levin
Henry Bernard Levin CBE was an English journalist, author and broadcaster, described by The Times as "the most famous journalist of his day". The son of a poor Jewish family in London, he won a scholarship to the independent school Christ's Hospital and went on to the London School of Economics,...
, who described him as "a calamity" and accused him of vindictiveness and of being a malign influence on penal reform. Levin had also attacked Goddard when he retired as Lord Chief Justice thirteen years earlier in a Spectator
The Spectator
The Spectator is a weekly British magazine first published on 6 July 1828. It is currently owned by David and Frederick Barclay, who also owns The Daily Telegraph. Its principal subject areas are politics and culture...
article, saying he walked hand in hand with ignorance on one side of him and barbarism on the other. In The Times on 8 June 1971, Levin wrote (referring to Goddard's assertion in 1970 that he had been "very unhappy" about Bentley being hanged) that "if Goddard did indeed claim this, it was a breathtaking piece of hypocrisy, in view of his conduct of the case". Afterwards Levin was blackballed by the Garrick Club
Garrick Club
The Garrick Club is a gentlemen's club in London.-History:The Garrick Club was founded at a meeting in the Committee Room at Theatre Royal, Drury Lane on Wednesday 17 August 1831...
, a favourite resort of both lawyers and journalists, when his application for membership came up.
To balance this criticism there is the appeal case of Daly v Cannon, presided over by Lord Goddard in 1954. A rag and bone man
Rag and bone man
Rag and bone man is a British phrase for a junk dealer. Historically the phrase referred to an individual who would travel the streets of a city with a horsedrawn cart, and would collect old rags for making fabric and paper, bones for making glue, scrap iron for recycling, and assorted miscellany...
in Ilford gave gifts to children to bring out recyclable material. For fear of spreading disease it was made unlawful for rag and bone men to give 'articles' to children. Mr Cannon circumvented this by giving the children goldfish by placing them in water filled jars that the children had to provide (and by doing so avoided the public health risk of handing them articles). Mr Daly, the Chief Sanitary Inspector for the local council, tried to prosecute him but the magistrates threw out the case on the grounds that a goldfish was not an article. Mr Daly appealed. Mr Cannon did not seem to be able to afford counsel for the appeal, so he sent a letter of apology to the Appeal Court in case he was found to have done something wrong. Lord Goddard agreed with the magistrates that a goldfish was not an article and dismissed the appeal. If he was vindictive, he did not show it in this case. This case was relatively trivial and did not involve capital punishment, however.
Death
Goddard died at his home in The Temple, London on 29 May 1971. He was cremated four days later. No memorial service was held. When alive, Goddard said he did not want one as they were "exercises in hypocrisy". He left over £100,000 in his will, published in July 1971.Popular culture
Lord Goddard was portrayed by the actor Michael GoughMichael Gough
Michael Gough was an English character actor who appeared in over 150 films. He is perhaps best known to international audiences for his roles in the Hammer Horror films from 1958, and for his recurring role as Alfred Pennyworth in all four movies of the Burton/Schumacher Batman franchise,...
in the film Let him have it
Let Him Have It
Let Him Have It is a 1991 British film, which was based on the true story of the case against Derek Bentley, who was hanged for murder under controversial circumstances on 28 January 1953. While Bentley did not directly play a role in the murder of PC Sidney Miles, he received the greater...
in 1991.
It has been claimed that Goddard had a particular personal reaction to sentencing people to death. According to his valet, Goddard would have an orgasm
Orgasm
Orgasm is the peak of the plateau phase of the sexual response cycle, characterized by an intense sensation of pleasure...
during sentencing and his trousers had to be sent off to be cleaned as a result.
Another version suggests Goddard reacted in this way when sentencing young men to be birched.