News
Colourful Judge Pickles dies
- 04th January 2011
The famous judge, Judge Pickles, has died aged 85 leaving a legacy of important and sometimes controversial judgments in his wake
including forcing a change in the law that allowed judges to speak out in public in 1986 when he defied the then Lord Chancellor to sack him for his views.
Judge Pickles attracted both public and professional support for his groundbreaking views and went on to be regarded as ‘untouchable’. He particularly attracted publicity when in 1990 he called for brothels and cannabis to be legalised, for a stop to immigration and for Myra Hindley’s release. He was also well-known for his tough sentencing which included sending a single mother to prison for shoplifting and frequently outraged colleagues with his views.
His antics outside the professional arena included calling Sarah, Duchess of York as a “scrubber” and singer Freddie Mercury a “greedy bisexual”, making him a popular subject for the media. After his retirement, he became a tabloid columnist and made TV appearances which were sometimes controversial. He once described himself as “the human face of the judiciary” and once called Lord Chief Justice Lord Lane “an ancient dinosaur”.
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