Sir Bernard Caulfield (24 April 1914 – 17 October 1994) was a British barrister and High Court judge who served in the

Queen's Bench Division The King's Bench Division (or Queen's Bench Division when the monarch is female) of the High Court of Justice deals with a wide range of common law cases and has supervisory responsibility over certain lower courts. It hears appeals on point ...

from 1968 to 1989. Known for his verbal floridness in court, he is perhaps best remembered for presiding over

Jeffrey Archer Jeffrey Howard Archer, Baron Archer of Weston-super-Mare (born 15 April 1940) is an English novelist, life peer, convicted criminal, and former politician. Before becoming an author, Archer was a Member of Parliament (1969–1974), but did not ...

's libel action against the '' Daily Star'' in 1987, which later led to Archer's conviction and imprisonment for perjury.

Early life and legal career

Bernard Caulfield was the youngest son of Dr John Caulfield, a GP in St Helens, and Catherine Quinn. He was educated at St Francis Xavier's College, Liverpool and

Liverpool University , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

, graduating with an LL.B. in 1938 and an LL.M. in 1940, qualifying as a solicitor the same year. He was called up for military service the same year, and served in the

Royal Army Ordnance Corps The Royal Army Ordnance Corps (RAOC) was a corps of the British Army. At its renaming as a Royal Corps in 1918 it was both a supply and repair corps. In the supply area it had responsibility for weapons, armoured vehicles and other military equip ...

, reaching the rank of Major. On returning to civilian life in 1946, he transferred to the Bar, and he was

called to the Bar The call to the bar is a legal term of art in most common law jurisdictions where persons must be qualified to be allowed to argue in court on behalf of another party and are then said to have been "called to the bar" or to have received "call to ...

Lincoln's Inn The Honourable Society of Lincoln's Inn is one of the four Inns of Court in London to which barristers of England and Wales belong and where they are called to the Bar. (The other three are Middle Temple, Inner Temple and Gray's Inn.) Lincoln ...

in 1947. He joined the Midland Circuit in 1949 and was appointed a

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of ...

in 1961. Caulfield was

Recorder Recorder or The Recorder may refer to: Newspapers * ''Indianapolis Recorder'', a weekly newspaper * ''The Recorder'' (Massachusetts newspaper), a daily newspaper published in Greenfield, Massachusetts, US * ''The Recorder'' (Port Pirie), a news ...

Coventry Coventry ( or ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city in the West Midlands (county), West Midlands, England. It is on the River Sherbourne. Coventry has been a large settlement for centuries, although it was not founded and given its ...

from 1963 to 1968 and Leader of the Midland Circuit from 1965 to 1968.

Judicial career

Caulfield was appointed to the

High Court of Justice The High Court of Justice in London, known properly as His Majesty's High Court of Justice in England, together with the Court of Appeal of England and Wales, Court of Appeal and the Crown Court, are the Courts of England and Wales, Senior Cou ...

in 1968 on the recommendation of Lord Gardiner, the Labour

lord chancellor The lord chancellor, formally the lord high chancellor of Great Britain, is the highest-ranking traditional minister among the Great Officers of State in Scotland and England in the United Kingdom, nominally outranking the prime minister. The ...

and a close colleague at the Bar, with whom he is thought to have shared political sympathies. He received the customary

knighthood A knight is a person granted an honorary title of knighthood by a head of state (including the Pope) or representative for service to the monarch, the church or the country, especially in a military capacity. Knighthood finds origins in the Gr ...

the same year and was assigned to the

. He spent almost his entire judicial career on circuit, mostly on the Northern Circuit, of which he was the presiding judge from 1976 to 1980. His infrequent London sittings were thought to be a major factor in foreclosing promotion to the

Court of Appeal A court of appeals, also called a court of appeal, appellate court, appeal court, court of second instance or second instance court, is any court of law that is empowered to hear an appeal of a trial court or other lower tribunal. In much of t ...

. On the bench, Caulfield was famous for his florid language, particularly in summing-ups.

Archer libel trial

In 1987 he presided over

's libel action against tabloid the '' Daily Star'', which had published a story alleging that Archer had paid for sex with the prostitute

Monica Coghlan Monica Coghlan (3 April 1951 – 27 April 2001) was an English woman at the centre of a scandal that involved British Conservative politician Jeffrey Archer in 1987. Although he won a libel case against the '' Daily Star'' newspaper, which ha ...

. The description Caulfield gave of Mrs Archer in his summing-up speech to the jury, heavily in favour of Archer, acquired a certain notoriety:

Remember
Mary Archer Mary Doreen Archer, Baroness Archer of Weston-super-Mare ( Weeden; born 22 December 1944) is a British scientist specialising in solar power conversion. She is married to Jeffrey Archer, a former chairman of the Conservative Party. Early life ...
in the witness-box. Your vision of her probably will never disappear. Has she elegance? Has she fragrance? Would she have, without the strain of this trial, radiance? How would she appeal? Has she had a happy married life? Has she been able to enjoy, rather than endure, her husband Jeffrey?

The judge then went on to say of Jeffrey Archer:

Is he in need of cold, unloving, rubber-insulated sex in a seedy hotel round about quarter to one on a Tuesday morning after an evening at the Caprice?

Explaining the payment to Coghlan as the action of a philanthropist rather than that of a guilty man, Archer won the case and was awarded £500,000 damages, but in July 2001 was convicted of perjury in relation to the evidence he gave at the trial. He received four years in prison. Caulfield was spared the embarrassment of seeing this, having died in October 1994.

Other notable trials

Among his other notable cases, in 1984 he tried the burglar and rapist

Malcolm Fairley Malcolm Fairley (born 1952) is a British criminal and sex offender, who in 1984 committed a series of burglaries and violent sexual crimes in the Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Hertfordshire areas of England, and more specifically, in an area ...

at St Albans Crown Court. Describing Fairley as "a decadent advertisement for evil pornographers", Caulfield gave him six life sentences.

References

* https://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/10.1093/ww/9780199540891.001.0001/ww-9780199540884-e-171600 {{DEFAULTSORT:Caulfield, Bernard 1914 births 1994 deaths Knights Bachelor Queen's Bench Division judges English King's Counsel 20th-century King's Counsel English solicitors Members of Lincoln's Inn Royal Army Ordnance Corps officers British Army personnel of World War II Alumni of the University of Liverpool