Sir Oliver Popplewell, who has died aged 96, was liable for delivering a demoralising setback to the Guardian. Within the libel declare introduced by the Conservative MP Jonathan Aitken in opposition to the newspaper after it had reported that he had breached parliamentary guidelines as minister for defence procurement, the excessive court docket choose dominated in Could 1997 that the case shouldn’t go earlier than a jury. The paperwork detailing the politician’s enterprise pursuits was far too advanced, declared Mr Justice Popplewell – agreeing with submissions by Aitken’s attorneys. He would resolve the difficulty himself.
The Guardian’s attorneys, who had retained George Carman for his formidable cross-examination abilities and skill to simplify points for jurors, had been dismayed. In his memoir, Benchmark (2003), Popplewell recorded that his “choice was greeted by close to hysteria among the many Guardian scribblers …”
The newspaper challenged the discovering however the court docket of enchantment supported the trial choose. It was a blow the Guardian subsequently overcame by unearthing contemporary proof in the course of the trial that uncovered Aitken’s lies about who had paid for his keep on the Ritz lodge in Paris in 1993.
Guardian reporters investigating the story (myself included) managed to seek out receipts within the basement of a Swiss lodge that set off a paperchase by British Airways’ flight information that proved Aitken’s spouse, Lolicia, had not flown to Paris to settle his invoice as he had claimed. Consequently it turned clear that Aitken had allowed aides of the Saudi royal household to pay. His libel motion collapsed.
There had been suspicion initially inside the Guardian that Popplewell was an institution determine whose sympathies is perhaps received over by a fellow public faculty boy. Aitken’s personal memoir, Satisfaction and Perjury (2000), nonetheless, reveals that the Tory politician feared the choose had rumbled him early on and disbelieved his misleading narrative.
Popplewell later mentioned that by the third day of the trial he had realised the previous minister was not telling the reality. He described the case as “one of many bitterest and most enthralling libel actions heard in an English court docket”.
Aitken was subsequently imprisoned for perjury and perverting the course of justice.
Popplewell got here to preside over defamation circumstances late in his judicial profession. They introduced him some notoriety. He was pilloried because the epitome of an out-of-touch choose when, in a libel case involving allegations of performance-enhancing medicine in sport, he inquired: “What’s Linford Christie’s lunchbox?” Popplewell later defined that he had at all times understood the reference was to the athlete’s manhood however requested the query to make sure the jury knew what was being mentioned. Non-public Eye nonetheless christened him Mr Justice Popplecarrot.
As a excessive court docket choose, he additionally heard the early levels of Neil Hamilton’s try to sue the proprietor of Harrods, Mohamed Al Fayed, for libel within the disputed money for questions controversy revealed by the Guardian.
Popplewell was introduced up in Northwood, north-west London, the place his nanny cared for him in childhood. His father, Frank, was a senior civil servant on the Ministry of Labour; his mom, Nina (nee Marks), had been a suffragette and was later secretary of the Equal Pay Marketing campaign Committee. Educated at Charterhouse faculty, in Godalming, Surrey, Popplewell accomplished two years of nationwide service within the navy “beneath decks” relatively than serving as an officer. He received an exhibition to Queens’ Faculty, Cambridge, the place he studied regulation, graduating in 1951.
He joined the Labour celebration however his ardour was cricket. He performed for Cambridge College, as wicketkeeper and batsman. Cricketing connections helped him safe a spot as a barrister in chambers close to the Royal Courts of Justice. It remained an abiding enthusiasm: he rose to be president of MCC from 1994 to 1996.
In 1975, Popplewell offered a personality witness for his godson Stephen Fry, who was then 18, at his trial for bank card fraud. Popplewell and his first spouse, Margaret Storey, had been buddies of Fry’s dad and mom. The comic and actor later sought refuge on the Popplewells’ cottage in Norfolk after disappearing from his starring function within the West Finish manufacturing of the play Cell Mates in 1995. Fry wrote the foreword to Popplewell’s autobiography, describing him as a person of “intelligence, decency, diligence and public service”.
Popplewell turned a QC in 1969, sat as a recorder within the crown court docket and was appointed a excessive court docket choose in 1983. Along with his curiosity in sport, he was chosen to chair an inquiry into crowd security at sports activities grounds following the 1985 fireplace at Bradford Metropolis soccer stadium that killed 56 individuals. He concluded that the blaze was unintended and beneficial banning new picket stadiums. Popplewell initially resisted requires a contemporary inquiry after one of many survivors, Martin Fletcher, printed a guide linking fires at different premises to the Bradford floor.
Kin of the Liverpool victims of the Hillsborough stadium tragedy had been later infuriated by the previous choose when, in a letter to the Occasions in 2011, Popplewell referred to as on them to drop their “conspiracy theories” and behave with “quiet dignity and nice braveness” just like the residents of Bradford.
After retiring from the bench, Popplewell launched into a second tutorial profession on the age of 76 – taking a philosophy, politics and economics (PPE) diploma at Oxford. One of many college’s oldest freshers, he graduated in 2006, then accomplished an MA within the historical past of worldwide relations on the London College of Economics and an extra BA at Buckingham College.
His books included The Prime Minister and His Mistress (2014), about Herbert Asquith and Venetia Stanley, The Aphrodisiac of Energy (2016) concerning the abuse of political standing, and Munich, Why? (2021), described as a chilly case assessment of Hitler’s and Chamberlain’s 1938 settlement.
He met Storey at Cambridge, on a lacrosse pitch, the place her first phrases had been: “Would you take care of a cup of tea, Mr Popplewell?” They married in 1954 and had 4 sons. Storey, who turned a Conservative councillor and chair of Buckinghamshire training committee, died in 2001. In 2008, Popplewell married Dame Elizabeth Gloster, a former enchantment court docket choose.
She and his sons, Nigel, Andrew, Alexander and Eddie, survive him.
