For many years, I was a circuit judge.  I have now retired and so have removed the directions for summing up which used to appear on this page.

Knife Crime

In a speech at Luton Crown Court, I expressed some thoughts about knife crime. One way of reducing the horrifying number of serious injuries and, indeed, deaths caused by knife attacks would be to round off the ends of long kitchen knives. It is the points of long kitchen knives which enter vital organs and sever arteries, not the blades. How often do we use the points of 8 or 10 inch knives in the kitchen? Click here for more.

Summing up for juries

Summing up for juries (directing them on the law and summarising the evidence) is one of the most important functions that circuit judges and recorders perform in any criminal trial. You can read my views about how judges can make jurors' tasks easier by giving written directions with sign-posts to verdict in my Criminal Law Review article Summing Up - a Judge's Perspective.   

A More Consistent Approach to Sentencing

 An article published in the Commonwealth Judges and Magistrates Journal.

Restorative Justice

Click here for a paper on Restorative Justice which I delivered in French to a colloque at the Universite Catholique de Lyon in November 2017.