Nigel Cyprian Bridge, Baron Bridge of
Harwich PC (26 February 1917 – 20 November 2007) was a
British
barrister
and judge. Bridge was the presiding judge at the trial of
the
Birmingham six in 1975, quashed
by the Court of Appeal in 1991, and later served as a
Law Lord.
Early and private life
Bridge's father was
Commander Cyprian Bridge of
the
Royal Navy. His mother was the
daughter of a cotton manufacturer from Lancashire. His parents
separated shortly after his birth and he never knew his father.
Bridge
followed his elder brother, Antony
Bridge, to Marlborough College
, winning a scholarship. His brother was later
a painter before becoming a Church of
England priest and latterly Dean of Guildford
Cathedral
.
He left Marlborough aged 17, and spent time in Europe, where he
learned French and German. He worked as a journalist on regional
newspapers in Lancashire, and wrote an unpublished novel. He
volunteered to join the
Fleet Air Arm
before the
Second World War broke out,
but was rejected as being
colour blind.
He was conscripted into the
British
Army in 1940, serving in the
King's Royal Rifle Corps and
reaching the rank of
Captain before
being demobilised in 1946. He married to Margaret Swinbank,
daughter of Leonard Heseltine Swinbank, since 1944. They had three
children, two daughters and one son. His wife died in 2006.
Legal career
Bridge was
called to the Bar at Inner Temple
in 1947, having achieved the first place in that
year's bar exams. He became a pupil of
Martin Jukes, and then practised as a
Barrister-at-Law at 3 Temple Gardens from
1950, in the chambers headed by
Lord
Widgery, undertaking mainly personal injury work, but also town
and country planning and local government law. He was made a
Bencher at Inner Temple in 1964. He was
later Reader in 1986 and Treasurer in 1986.
From 1964 to 1968, he was Junior Counsel to the Treasury in Common
Law (also known as "Treasury Devil"), as a sure route to the bench.
He became a
High Court Judge in
1968, joining the
Queen's Bench
Division, and was knighted. He was Presiding Judge of the
Western Circuit from
1972 to 1974.
Bridge was
the presiding judge at the trial of the Birmingham six, accused of bombings in
Birmingham
in November 1974. In his last case before he
joined the Court of Appeal, his summing up was criticised as being
biased against the defendants, with him saying that there was "the
clearest and most overwhelming evidence I have ever heard in a case
of murder". The defendants served 16 years in prison before the
convictions were quashed due by the Court of Appeal in 1991 due to
new evidence emerging - principally, that the defendants had been
beaten by the police to secure their confessions (similar claims
having been dismissed by Bridge at the original trial).
He became a
Lord Justice of
Appeal in 1975, and became a
Privy
Counsellor.
He was a member of the Security Commission from 1977 and 1985,
serving as chairman between 1982 and 1985, in which capacity he
published a report into the vetting of staff at Buckingham
Palace
. He also conducted inquiries following the
cases of
Geoffrey Prime,
Michael Bettaney and
Rhona Ritchie.
He became a
Lord of Appeal in
Ordinary in 1980, and was created a
life
peer with the title
Baron Bridge of Harwich,
of Harwich, in the County of
Essex. He was the
only Law Lord without a university degree. He was mooted as a
successor to
Lord Widgery as
Lord Chief Justice in 1979, and to
Lord Denning as
Master of the Rolls in 1982, but did not
secure either position.
He joined
Lord Oliver of
Aylmerton in dissenting from the majority decision in the
Spycatcher case in 1987. He
criticised the government's case to prevent publication of the
contents of
Peter Wright's book as
"ridiculous". He supported the majority decision in the
Gillick case on medical consent in
1985, and in the
McLoughlin v
O'Brian case on recovery of damages for
nervous shock.
Later life
His retirement from the bench in 1992 was compulsory, having
reached 75 years old.
He studied mathematical sciences in his
retirement, partly to show that he retained his cognitive
abilities, and obtained a Bachelor
of Science degree from the Open University
in 2003, aged 86. He was an Honorary
Fellow of Wolfson College
, Cambridge
from 1989, and chairman of the Church of England
Synodical Government Review from 1993 to 1997.
Cases
References
- Bridge, N.C (1982). Baron of Harwich.
Report of an inquiry by the Right Honourable Lord Bridge of
Harwich into the appointment as The Queen's Police Officer, and the
activities of, Commander Trestrail; to determine whether security
was breached or put at risk, and advise whether in consequence any
change in security arrangements is necessary or desirable.
HC59 (November). London: HMSO.
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