Obituaries
Obituary: Sir Louis Blom-Cooper
Principled lawyer who opposed the death penalty and fought for prison reform
November 29, 2018 16:51
Principled lawyer who opposed the death penalty and fought for prison reform
November 29, 2018 16:51He saved many lives through his fervent opposition to the death penalty, but the lawyer and prison reformer Louis Blom-Cooper could not save Michael X.
He argued vainly for the Black Power leader’s death sentence to be commuted, pleading that his prolonged stay on Death Row was tantamount to torture. But Lord Diplock rubbished his argument, insisting that the delay was the defendant’s fault for appealing, and Michael X was duly hanged in Trinidad in 1975. It took ten years for Blom Cooper’s views to be vindicated by the law lords.
Louis Blom-Cooper, who has died aged 92, was a man of principle and varied talents which could have made him a law lord, himself. But instead he devoted his gifts to rendering legal jargon comprehensible to the man in the street, as he did as Justinian in his Times column and to grappling with such issues as prison reform.
Unwilling to be pigeon-holed into legal issues alone, Blom-Cooper also contributed football journalism for The Observer. He wrote a paperback demolishing the argument that James Hanratty, hanged for the A6 murder in 1961, was innocent, which proved correct in 2001 through DNA testing.
But his beliefs made him stubborn – which did not always serve his own interests. When the Birmingham six were jailed in 1975 for the Birmingham pub bombings but had their convictions quashed in 1991, he wrote a book suggesting they were not blameless and they successfully sued him in Ireland, which offered no legal public interest defence. He often flew in the face of established opinion, oblivious to whether he might cause upset, upheaval or even a pointless intervention. He aroused controversy, for instance, by voicing his objection to the jury system which he felt was “a recipe for incompetence and unbridled bias.”
Blom-Cooper fought for prisoners’ rights to access the courts in 1983, which today offers prisoners basic citizens’ rights, but were not then available. Even prior to his battle for the life of Michael X, Blom-Cooper was concerned with the issue of capital punishment. In 1967 he argued before the Privy Council in Europe against mandatory death penalties in the time of emergency in former Southern Nyasaland (now part of Malawi.) At the time the Privy council decreed such decisions could only be made by the legislature.
Blom-Cooper was one of the founders of Amnesty International in 1961and a fervent supporter of prison reform. It was his commitment to abolishing capital punishment for which he will be best remembered, and for his courage in voicing unpopular views in his time.
He strongly attacked social service neglect for leading to child abuse. His intervention led to changes in the law, as did his chairmanship of the Mental Health Act Commission for England and Wales. He investigated ministerial corruption in the Turks and Caicos islands and in Antigua, where the Columbia-based Medellin cartel procured guns from Israel.
Louis Boom-Cooper was born in London, the son of fruit and vegetable trader Alfred Blom-Cooper and his wife Ella Flesseman, who died when he was six. He studied at Seaford College and took law degrees at Kings College, London and Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge. Between 1944-47 he captained th East Yorkshire Regiment, took a doctorate in Amsterdam and was called to the Bar at Middle Temple in 1952.
Early in his career he confronted issues concerning Israel. He worked as a junior on the libel trial of Exodus author Leon Uris when Dr Wladislaw Dering sued Uris over claims in his novel that he had been involved in medical experiments in Auschwitz. The court awarded Dr Dering a derisory one half-penny damages on May 6, 1964. Blom-Cooper based his novel, QB VII on this case.
In 1966 Roy Jenkins appointed him to the home secretary’s advisory council on penal reform. He argued for natural justice in the field of immigration and asylum cases. He took silk in 1970, heading chambers at Goldsmiths Buildings, where he attracted like-minded young barristers who were keen to seek his advice. He represented the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association which organised the march leading to Bloody Sunday in 1972. In 1973 he chaired the Howard League for Penal Reform.
He represented Bob Monkhouse successfully at the Old Bailey in 1979 over film copyright charges. Between 1989-90 he chaired the Press Council, arguing that newspapers should offer a right of reply to those they criticised. He also introduced a newspaper code of practice, later considered inadequate. He was knighted in 1992.
It was a natural move after the Press Council for him to join a human rights practice, Doughty Street Chambers. As attitudes changed and began favouring his own approach towards human rights, he upped his numerous social endeavours such as his chairmanship of Friend Indeed, which aimed to compensate victims of violent crime.
He married Miriam Swift in 1952 and they had a daughter, Alison and twin sons, Keith and Jeremy. They divorced and in 1970 he married Jane Smither, a social worker and prison reformer, with whom he had two children, Martha and Hannah and a son George. Popular and convivial, Blom-Cooper was as happy having a meal with a former prisoner as with a law lord. He is survived by his children. Jane died in 2006.
GLORIA TESSLER
Sir Louis Blom-Cooper: born March 27, 1926. Died September 19, 2018.
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