Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer

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Ms Davies said she herself was 'totally oblivious' of any problem Ms Mansfield might have caused and offered her the chance to withdraw her resignation. She asked her to let her know by the next morning and when she had not heard anything by 12.39pm, she confirmed the resignation.

Restriction to the right to bring a judicial review: already shrouded by strict time limits and strict principles on who can bring claims, a judicial review is one of the few ways we can bring the government to account. Despite the significant hurdle of not even knowing what the legal profession involved, Mr Mansfield created his own opportunities by travelling to the Inner Temple in London. Following an explanation of what was required to become a barrister, he completed his training, returned, and asked for a pupillage. Mr Mansfield’s hard work, resilience and determination resulted in him being called to the Bar in 1967. He then established Tooks Chambers in 1984 and became Queen’s Counsel in 1989. In fact, when it came to it, Mansfield pulled his punches, as the coroner pointed out approvingly in his summing up this week. None of Fayed's more florid accusations were put to his chief suspects by Mansfield. The silk faithfully observed the rule that allegations should not be made without evidence. Sir Robert Fellowes was not asked if he had murdered his sister-in-law, and the suggestion that Prince Philip played a personal part in the deaths was not pursued. Read more about Mr Mansfield’s journey, and some of the interesting cases he has worked on in his book - Memoirs of a Radical Lawyer. ACTIVIST LAWYER – A POLITICIAN’S TOOLMansfield said he first gave his support “to defend the right of those who wished to voice legitimate criticisms of the government of Israel and their repeated violation of International law from being unfairly categorised as antisemitism”. Mansfield is a patron of the animal rights organisation Viva! (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals) and refers to animal production as "genocide". [19] He is also patron of Hastings Advice and Representation Centre, a charity providing free welfare benefit advice and representation for local people in Hastings, East Sussex and the surrounding area. [ citation needed] He is a co-founder and trustee of the charity Silence of Suicide (SOS). [20]

I think more about Anna now that she is dead than I did when she was alive. But I have also learned that, hard though it is, that decision has to be respected," he says. FOR all his years coming to Northern Ireland, Michael Mansfield has yet to return to the Giant's Causeway, some seven decades after his first and so far only visit. He was about seven or eight, on holiday with his parents, when he went to see the famed lava formations.The plight of those affected was initially taken up by a group called 'Waspi' - Women Against State Pension Inequality - which launched its campaign in 2015. Tottenham 1-2 Aston Villa: Ollie Watkins fires visitors to victory to condemn Spurs to a third-straight defeat... as Unai Emery's high-flyers go FOURTH after thrilling game on emotional day for the hosts

Mansfield has been married three times. He was married for 19 years to Melian Bordes, with whom he had five children, and for 30 years to the artist/filmmaker Yvette Vanson, from whom he separated in 2014 and with whom he had a son. He has been with his current wife, Yvette Greenway, a well-known snooker player, since 2015. [13] [14] His daughter, Anna, took her own life in May 2015. [15] Political views [ edit ] At the Bloody Sunday inquiry, he represented families of anti-internment protesters shot dead by British soldiers in Londonderry more than 30 years earlier. Under Mansfield's cross-examination at the inquiry in 2002, a paratrooper admitted, for the first time, that he had shot dead one of the protesters. "The wife of the victim collapsed in court," Mansfield recalls. "She said she had waited 30 years to hear him say that, to know the truth about how her husband died. She said she didn't mind what happened after that, it was all she wanted to know."Since then, pretty well every case I've taken on has excited the same sort of question, ie why is he doing this? From the Price sisters all the way through to the Lawrence inquiry, I've always been asking uncomfortable questions about how the authorities run things. I can't think of a period when I haven't done a case which hasn't raised serious questions about the authorities and the Establishment. A DWP spokesperson told us: 'The government decided more than 20 years ago that it was going to make the state pension age the same for men and women as a long-overdue move towards gender equality, and this has been clearly communicated. Mansfield is particularly concerned that over the last 20 years the hallowed idea that someone is innocent until proven guilty has been increasingly eroded. "The Tories were bad enough, but New Labour" – who he says have created 3,600 new crimes – "have switched the emphasis. It's not quite as bad as you've got to prove your innocence, but they have shifted the burden of proof on a number of things over to the defence." He gives as an example the new law that makes taking a photograph of a police officer a criminal offence. "If you're going to defend yourself, you can't just say 'I'm not intending to give it to a terrorist'. That's not enough. It's over to you to prove it. That is a very dangerous precedent."