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| Lord Griffiths obituary | Lord Griffiths obituary |
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| Hugh Griffiths, who has died aged 91, had a distinguished career in the legal profession as a barrister, a high court judge and – as Lord Justice Griffiths – a law lord and life peer. Over the years he was called upon to head various official inquiries and to serve on numerous public and legal bodies. A first-class cricketer and excellent golfer in his younger years, he also had the unique distinction of having been both president of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) – where he championed the admission of women – and captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. | Hugh Griffiths, who has died aged 91, had a distinguished career in the legal profession as a barrister, a high court judge and – as Lord Justice Griffiths – a law lord and life peer. Over the years he was called upon to head various official inquiries and to serve on numerous public and legal bodies. A first-class cricketer and excellent golfer in his younger years, he also had the unique distinction of having been both president of the Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) – where he championed the admission of women – and captain of the Royal and Ancient Golf Club. |
| Almost immediately on his appointment to the high court in 1971, in the Queen’s Bench division, he was involved in controversy, when Judge Michael Argyle sentenced the editors of the satirical magazine Oz to 15 months’ imprisonment for printing sexually explicit images in their Schoolkids Oz issue. At the time, bail in appeal cases was not the norm. However, Griffiths granted the defendants bail pending their appeal and was rebuked in a note from Lord Widgery, the then lord chief justice. Griffiths thought that his high court career had not started well, but fairly soon his decision was justified when the convictions were quashed at the subsequent appeal hearing. | Almost immediately on his appointment to the high court in 1971, in the Queen’s Bench division, he was involved in controversy, when Judge Michael Argyle sentenced the editors of the satirical magazine Oz to 15 months’ imprisonment for printing sexually explicit images in their Schoolkids Oz issue. At the time, bail in appeal cases was not the norm. However, Griffiths granted the defendants bail pending their appeal and was rebuked in a note from Lord Widgery, the then lord chief justice. Griffiths thought that his high court career had not started well, but fairly soon his decision was justified when the convictions were quashed at the subsequent appeal hearing. |
| From 1973 he was a member of the unpopular National Industrial Relations court, created by Edward Heath’s government in an attempt to limit the power of trades unions. Joining the high court had brought him a knighthood, and in 1980 he was made a privy counsellor on being appointed a lord justice of appeal. Five years later he became a lord of appeal in ordinary – a law lord – with the title of Baron Griffiths, of Govilon in the county of Gwent. | From 1973 he was a member of the unpopular National Industrial Relations court, created by Edward Heath’s government in an attempt to limit the power of trades unions. Joining the high court had brought him a knighthood, and in 1980 he was made a privy counsellor on being appointed a lord justice of appeal. Five years later he became a lord of appeal in ordinary – a law lord – with the title of Baron Griffiths, of Govilon in the county of Gwent. |
| In 1988 he was the sole dissenter when the House of Lords ruled that the controversial exposé of MI5 by the intelligence officer Peter Wright in his book Spycatcher was in the public domain and that there should be no injunctions against the Guardian, the Observer and the Sunday Times. Griffiths argued that an injunction was necessary to prevent any further breaches of confidentiality. A man ahead of his time, in 1991 he ruled in the Jamaican case of Pratt and Morgan that to execute two prisoners held on death row for 13 years would breach the country’s constitution. | In 1988 he was the sole dissenter when the House of Lords ruled that the controversial exposé of MI5 by the intelligence officer Peter Wright in his book Spycatcher was in the public domain and that there should be no injunctions against the Guardian, the Observer and the Sunday Times. Griffiths argued that an injunction was necessary to prevent any further breaches of confidentiality. A man ahead of his time, in 1991 he ruled in the Jamaican case of Pratt and Morgan that to execute two prisoners held on death row for 13 years would breach the country’s constitution. |
| Other positions held by him included the vice chairmanship of the Parole Board in 1976 and president of the senate of the inns of court and the bar (1982–84). He was chairman of the Security Commission, a quango that investigated breaches of security in the public sector (1985-92), and recommended that very young people in the armed forces should not be sent abroad to situations where there were high security risks. This followed the Cyprus spy trial, at which it was alleged that men and women in the armed forces were being blackmailed by the Russians after drug-taking and homosexual orgies. | Other positions held by him included the vice chairmanship of the Parole Board in 1976 and president of the senate of the inns of court and the bar (1982–84). He was chairman of the Security Commission, a quango that investigated breaches of security in the public sector (1985-92), and recommended that very young people in the armed forces should not be sent abroad to situations where there were high security risks. This followed the Cyprus spy trial, at which it was alleged that men and women in the armed forces were being blackmailed by the Russians after drug-taking and homosexual orgies. |
| Griffiths was also a member of the lord chancellor’s advisory council on penal reform (1967-70), showing himself to be a firm supporter of the right of solicitors to appear and conduct proceedings in court. After his retirement in 1993 from the House of Lords, where he had been a crossbencher, he set himself up as an international arbitrator and mediator in chambers in Essex Street, London. In 2000 he chaired the inquiry into the acrimonious dispute between the vice-president of the Law Society, Kamlesh Bahl, and the society itself – in which he found that she had bullied members of the staff. | |
| Born in Marylebone, London, the son of a surgeon, Sir Hugh Griffiths, and his wife Doris (nee James), the young Hugh was educated at Charterhouse school, Surrey. At the age of 18, in 1942, he was commissioned in the Welsh Guards, where two years later he was awarded the Military Cross for his brave actions on the afternoon of 8 September 1944 as part of the 2nd Tank Armoured Battalion advancing from Brussels on the town of Hechtel in Flanders. | Born in Marylebone, London, the son of a surgeon, Sir Hugh Griffiths, and his wife Doris (nee James), the young Hugh was educated at Charterhouse school, Surrey. At the age of 18, in 1942, he was commissioned in the Welsh Guards, where two years later he was awarded the Military Cross for his brave actions on the afternoon of 8 September 1944 as part of the 2nd Tank Armoured Battalion advancing from Brussels on the town of Hechtel in Flanders. |
| After the war he read law at St John’s College, Cambridge, where he shone at golf and cricket. He opened the bowling for Cambridge in the varsity matches from 1946 to 1948 and, in the days when the university teams were sometimes as strong as the county teams, his career best figures were six for 129 against Lancashire. He appeared for Glamorgan in their championship-winning year in 1948, including in the match against Donald Bradman’s Australian touring side, and notched up 38 first-class matches in total, taking 102 wickets. He was also awarded a half blue for golf at Cambridge. | |
| In 1949 he was called to the bar and then ran a general commercial barrister’s practice at the Inner Temple that took on a number of difficult-to-prove medical cases. His experiences in that area led him to support a no-fault compensation scheme for medical misfortunes. On the lighter side, he also once successfully represented a farmer whose cow got loose in a high street and knocked down a pedestrian. It was one of those cases beloved by judges and Mr Justice Hallett, in finding for Griffiths’s client, said allowances must be made for the fact that the animal in question was “unacquainted with the regulations regarding zebra crossings”. | |
| Griffiths took silk in 1964 and was treasurer of the bar council in 1968-69. In 1969 he chaired the inquiry into the collapse of part of Ronan Point, a block of flats in east London in which a gas explosion had killed four people. The inquiry found that the block, which had been system-built using prefabricated concrete panels bolted together like a giant Meccano set, was structurally unsafe. As a result, new standards for concrete were introduced. In 1970, in one of his rare appearances for the prosecution, Griffiths helped to establish that a beer bottle full of petrol could be construed as an explosive within the meaning of the Explosive Substances Act. | Griffiths took silk in 1964 and was treasurer of the bar council in 1968-69. In 1969 he chaired the inquiry into the collapse of part of Ronan Point, a block of flats in east London in which a gas explosion had killed four people. The inquiry found that the block, which had been system-built using prefabricated concrete panels bolted together like a giant Meccano set, was structurally unsafe. As a result, new standards for concrete were introduced. In 1970, in one of his rare appearances for the prosecution, Griffiths helped to establish that a beer bottle full of petrol could be construed as an explosive within the meaning of the Explosive Substances Act. |
| His judicial career followed the traditional path of the time. He was recorder of Margate from 1962 until 1964 and then recorder of Cambridge until 1970. In the days when it was not regarded as a kindness to give housebreakers bail – let alone a non-custodial sentence – he was one of the few judges who believed that probation might prevent re-offending. | His judicial career followed the traditional path of the time. He was recorder of Margate from 1962 until 1964 and then recorder of Cambridge until 1970. In the days when it was not regarded as a kindness to give housebreakers bail – let alone a non-custodial sentence – he was one of the few judges who believed that probation might prevent re-offending. |
| Possessed of a magnificent pair of eyebrows that surpassed in bushiness even those of Denis Healey, he was caught on camera at one Open golf championship. The shot brought a jokey comment from the BBC commentator Peter Alliss, who had not realised he was speaking of a grandee of the Royal and Ancient. Griffiths was captain of the club (1993-94), having just served as president of the MCC (1991-92). During his time at Lord’s he supported the election of women members and helped to pave the way for the return of South Africa to international cricket following the apartheid boycott. | Possessed of a magnificent pair of eyebrows that surpassed in bushiness even those of Denis Healey, he was caught on camera at one Open golf championship. The shot brought a jokey comment from the BBC commentator Peter Alliss, who had not realised he was speaking of a grandee of the Royal and Ancient. Griffiths was captain of the club (1993-94), having just served as president of the MCC (1991-92). During his time at Lord’s he supported the election of women members and helped to pave the way for the return of South Africa to international cricket following the apartheid boycott. |
| In 1949 he married Evelyn Krefting. Two years after her death in 1998, he married the educationist Heather Brigstocke, Lady Brigstocke. She died when she was hit by a car in Athens in 2004. | |
| A man of great charm, a fine fisherman and a connoisseur of fast cars, wine and malt whiskies, he led the dancing at a ball for his 90th birthday in Inner Temple. | A man of great charm, a fine fisherman and a connoisseur of fast cars, wine and malt whiskies, he led the dancing at a ball for his 90th birthday in Inner Temple. |
| He is survived by his third wife, Greta Fenston, whom he married in 2009, by three daughters and a son from his first marriage, and by five stepchildren from the two that followed. | |
| • William Hugh Griffiths, judge, born 26 September 1923; died 30 May 2015 | • William Hugh Griffiths, judge, born 26 September 1923; died 30 May 2015 |
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