Congratulations to James Cherry and Richard Claughton, the winning team at this year’s Middle Temple mooting final which took place on Tuesday 13 October.
We were delighted to sponsor a prize at this event to mark the 100th birthday of Jeremy Hutchinson earlier this year. The winners received cheques of £750 each from Alexander Cameron QC.
Jeremy’s father, St John Hutchinson KC, founded our chambers in 1926 and Jeremy was a member throughout his career. He was called in 1939 but very shortly thereafter joined the Royal Navy as war seemed inevitable. He served throughout. He returned to chambers in 1946 and did his pupillage with James Burge. He took Silk in 1961.
Jeremy was generally considered to be one of the greatest criminal barristers of the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s. The cases of that period changed society for ever and Jeremy’s role in them was second to none. He was involved in many of the great trials of the period: the sex and spying scandals which contributed to Harold Macmillan’s resignation in 1963 and the fight against literary censorship involving Lady Chatterley’s Lover and Fanny Hill. He defended George Blake, Christine Keeler, the Great Train robber Charlie Wilson and later Howard Marks. He also prevented the suppression of Bernardo Bertolucci’s notorious film Last Tango in Paris and did battle with Mary Whitehouse when she prosecuted the director of the play Romans in Britain. Above all else, Jeremy’s career, both at the bar and later as a member of the House of Lords, has been one devoted to the preservation of individual liberty and to resisting the incursions of an overbearing state.
Many of the forensic triumphs are recounted in the recently published biography, ‘Jeremy Hutchinson’s Case Histories’; we recommend it to all as an inspiring and enjoyable read.
We would like to thank Middle Temple for allowing us to present this prize to mark a very special birthday.
15th October 2015
