Robert Michael Oldfield Havers, Baron Havers (10 March 1923 – 1 April 1992), was a British barrister and

Conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

politician. From his knighthood in 1972 until becoming a peer in 1987 he was known as Sir Michael Havers.

Early life and military service

Havers was the second son of High Court judge Sir Cecil Havers and Enid Flo Havers, ''née'' Snelling. He was the brother of

Baroness Butler-Sloss Baron is a rank of nobility or title of honour, often hereditary, in various European countries, either current or historical. The female equivalent is baroness. Typically, the title denotes an aristocrat who ranks higher than a lord or knigh ...

(born 1933) who in 1988 became the first woman named to the Court of Appeal and later President of the

Family Division 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 and the Crown Court, are the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Its name is abbreviated as EWHC (England ...

. He was educated at

Westminster School (God Gives the Increase) , established = Earliest records date from the 14th century, refounded in 1560 , type = Public school Independent day and boarding school , religion = Church of England , head_label = Hea ...

, before joining the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

in 1941 during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

. He served as a 19-year-old Midshipman on HMS ''Sirius'' attached to Force Q in the Mediterranean. On 10 September 1943, he was promoted from temporary acting sub-lieutenant to temporary sub-lieutenant. Following the end of the war, he transferred to the permanent

Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve The Royal Naval Reserve (RNR) is one of the two volunteer reserve forces of the Royal Navy in the United Kingdom. Together with the Royal Marines Reserve, they form the Maritime Reserve. The present RNR was formed by merging the original R ...

during April 1947 in the rank of

lieutenant A lieutenant ( , ; abbreviated Lt., Lt, LT, Lieut and similar) is a commissioned officer rank in the armed forces of many nations. The meaning of lieutenant differs in different militaries (see comparative military ranks), but it is often ...

seniority from 1 August 1945. After demobilization, he matriculated at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge in 1946, where he read law.

Legal career

Havers was called to the bar in 1948 and undertook his

pupillage A pupillage, in England and Wales, Northern Ireland, Kenya, Malaysia, Pakistan and Hong Kong, is the final, vocational stage of training for those wishing to become practising barristers. Pupillage is similar to an apprenticeship, during which bar ...

in the chambers of Fred Lawton, as the pupil of Gerald Howard. Havers was made a

Queen's Counsel In the United Kingdom and in some Commonwealth countries, a King's Counsel (post-nominal initials KC) during the reign of a king, or Queen's Counsel (post-nominal initials QC) during the reign of a queen, is a lawyer (usually a barrister o ...

in 1964. He was the

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 ...

of Dover from 1962 to 1968 and Recorder of

Norwich Norwich () is a cathedral city and district of Norfolk, England, of which it is the county town. Norwich is by the River Wensum, about north-east of London, north of Ipswich and east of Peterborough. As the seat of the See of Norwich, with ...

from 1968 to 1971. He was elected a bencher of the Inner Temple in 1971.

Political career

Havers was elected to the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. T ...

representing Wimbledon in 1970, a seat he held until 1987. He served as Solicitor General under

Edward Heath Sir Edward Richard George Heath (9 July 191617 July 2005), often known as Ted Heath, was a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1974 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1965 to 1975. Heath a ...

from 1972 to 1974. He became a member of the Privy Council in 1977. He served as Attorney-General for England and Wales and

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...

from 1979 to 1987 under

Margaret Thatcher Margaret Hilda Thatcher, Baroness Thatcher (; 13 October 19258 April 2013) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 1975 to 1990. She was the first female British prime ...

; his was the longest unbroken tenure of the office since the eighteenth century. During the Falklands War, Havers was included in Thatcher's

War Cabinet A war cabinet is a committee formed by a government in a time of war to efficiently and effectively conduct that war. It is usually a subset of the full executive cabinet of ministers, although it is quite common for a war cabinet to have senio ...

, to which he provided advice on international law and rules of engagement. In June 1987 he was appointed

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. Th ...

and consequently became a life peer as Baron Havers, of St Edmundsbury in the County of Suffolk, the last to be ennobled upon appointment. However, he was forced to resign that October, due to ill health.

Controversy

Yorkshire Ripper trial

In May 1981, at the beginning of the trial of

Peter Sutcliffe Peter William Sutcliffe (2 June 1946 – 13 November 2020) was an English serial killer who was dubbed the Yorkshire Ripper (an allusion to Jack the Ripper) by the press. Sutcliffe was convicted of murdering 13 women and attempting t ...

, the Yorkshire Ripper, Sutcliffe pleaded not guilty to 13 counts of murder, but guilty to manslaughter on the grounds of

diminished responsibility In criminal law, diminished responsibility (or diminished capacity) is a potential defense by excuse by which defendants argue that although they broke the law, they should not be held fully criminally liable for doing so, as their mental func ...

. The basis of this defence was his claim that he was the tool of God's will. Sutcliffe first claimed to have heard voices while working as a gravedigger, that ultimately ordered him to kill prostitutes. He claimed that the voices originated from a headstone of a deceased Polish man, Bronislaw Zapolski, and that the voices were that of God. He also pleaded guilty to seven counts of attempted murder. The prosecution intended to accept Sutcliffe's plea after four psychiatrists diagnosed him with

paranoid schizophrenia Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by continuous or relapsing episodes of psychosis. Major symptoms include hallucinations (typically hearing voices), delusions, and disorganized thinking. Other symptoms include social w ...

. However, the trial judge, Mr Justice Boreham, demanded an unusually detailed explanation of the prosecution reasoning. After a two-hour submission by Havers, the Attorney-General, a 90-minute lunch break and a further 40 minutes of legal discussion, he rejected the diminished responsibility plea and the expert testimonies of the four psychiatrists, insisting that the case should be dealt with by a jury. The trial proper was set to commence on 5 May 1981. Havers drew controversy at the outset of the trial, when he said of Sutcliffe's victims in his introductory speech: "Some were prostitutes, but perhaps the saddest part of the case is that some were not. The last six attacks were on totally respectable women." In response to this remark, the

English Collective of Prostitutes The English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) is a campaigning group which supports the decriminalisation of prostitution, sex workers' right to recognition and safety, and the provision of financial alternatives to prostitution so that no one ...

accused Havers of "condoning the murder of prostitutes", and women demonstrated outside the Old Bailey with placards in protest. The trial lasted a

fortnight A fortnight is a unit of time equal to 14 days (two weeks). The word derives from the Old English term , meaning "" (or "fourteen days," since the Anglo-Saxons counted by nights). Astronomy and tides In astronomy, a ''lunar fortnight'' is ha ...

and, despite the efforts of his counsel James Chadwin, QC, Sutcliffe was found guilty of murder on all counts and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Role in the Guildford Four and Maguire Family miscarriages of justice

Havers represented

the Crown The Crown is the state in all its aspects within the jurisprudence of the Commonwealth realms and their subdivisions (such as the Crown Dependencies, overseas territories, provinces, or states). Legally ill-defined, the term has different ...

in two high-profile

Troubles The Troubles ( ga, Na Trioblóidí) were an ethno-nationalist conflict in Northern Ireland that lasted about 30 years from the late 1960s to 1998. Also known internationally as the Northern Ireland conflict, it is sometimes described as an " ...

-related miscarriages of justice in British judicial history: the trial and appeal of the

Guildford Four Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, around southwest of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The name "Guildf ...

and also of the Maguire family (known as the

Maguire Seven Maguire ( , also spelled MacGuire or McGuire) is an Irish surname from the Goidelic languages, Gaelic , which is "son of Odhar" meaning "dun", "dark one". According to legend, this relates to the eleventh descendant of The Three Collas, Colla da ...

), all of whom were wrongfully convicted. Collectively, they served a total of 113 years in prison. One one of the Maguire Seven, Giuseppe Conlon, died in prison, convicted on the basis of discredited forensic evidence. In the case of the Guildford Four, the Director of Public Prosecutions was found to have suppressed alibi evidence that supported Gerry Conlon and Paul Hill's claims of innocence. The Director of Public Prosecutions, for which Havers was acting, was also found to have suppressed confessions by Provisional IRA bombers, known as the

Balcombe Street Gang The Balcombe Street Gang was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) active service unit (ASU) (also known as the Balcombe Street Four or the Balcombe Street Unit) who carried out a bombing campaign in southern England in the mid-1970s. The ...

, claiming responsibility for the Guildford and Woolwich bombings. In his submission to

Sir John May Sir John Douglas May, PC (28 June 1923 – 15 January 1997) was a British Court of Appeal judge appointed by the British Government to investigate the miscarriages of justice related to the Maguire Seven and other miscarriages linked to IRA bomb ...

's Inquiry into the Guildford and Woolwich bombings in 1989, Labour MP

Chris Mullin Christopher Paul Mullin (born July 30, 1963) is an American former professional basketball player, executive and coach. He is a two-time Olympic Gold medalist and a two-time Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame inductee (in 2010 as a memb ...

cast doubt on Havers's integrity in the matter:Evidence to Sir John May's Inquiry into the Guildford and Woolwich bombings - 1989
ePolitix

Sir Michael Havers represented the Crown at the trials of the Guildford Four, Mrs. Maguire and her family and at the re-trial/appeal of the Guildford Four. He is, therefore, probably the person who can lay claim to the most detailed knowledge of this affair. I respectfully submit that any inquiry that passed without the benefit of his experience would be deficient....
The only hope of sustaining the original convictions was to rewrite the script from top to bottom. This Sir Michael and his colleagues proceeded to do with ingenuity and relish.

Personal life

Havers married Carol Elizabeth Lay in 1949, with whom he had two sons; Philip Havers, who became a Queen's Counsel like his father, and the actor

Nigel Havers Nigel Allan Havers (born 6 November 1951) is an English actor. His film roles include Lord Andrew Lindsay in the 1981 British film ''Chariots of Fire'', which earned him a BAFTA nomination; as Dr. Rawlins in the 1987 Steven Spielberg war dram ...

."Obituary: Lord Havers." ''The Times'', London, 3 April 1992, p. 19. Havers was a member of the

Garrick Club The Garrick Club is a gentlemen's club in the heart of London founded in 1831. It is one of the oldest members' clubs in the world and, since its inception, has catered to members such as Charles Kean, Henry Irving, Herbert Beerbohm Tree, Ar ...

. Havers' house in Woodhayes Road, Wimbledon, was bombed by the

Provisional IRA The Irish Republican Army (IRA; ), also known as the Provisional Irish Republican Army, and informally as the Provos, was an Irish republicanism, Irish republican paramilitary organisation that sought to end British rule in Northern Ireland, fa ...

on 13 November 1981; Havers and his family were in Spain at the time of the attack."Attorney General latest target" Times ondon14 November 1981: The Times Digital Archive, 12 November 2014 A police constable standing guard outside the house was taken to hospital suffering from shock.

References

External links

* , - , - , - , - {{DEFAULTSORT:Havers, Michael 1923 births 1992 deaths Alumni of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge Attorneys General for England and Wales Attorneys General for Northern Ireland English King's Counsel Conservative Party (UK) MPs for English constituencies Conservative Party (UK) life peers English barristers

Michael Michael may refer to: People * Michael (given name), a given name * Michael (surname), including a list of people with the surname Michael Given name "Michael" * Michael (archangel), ''first'' of God's archangels in the Jewish, Christian an ...

Knights Bachelor Lord chancellors of Great Britain Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom Northern Ireland Government ministers People educated at Westminster School, London People from Wimbledon, London Provisional Irish Republican Army actions in England 20th-century King's Counsel Royal Navy officers of World War II Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve personnel of World War II Solicitors General for England and Wales UK MPs 1970–1974 UK MPs 1974 UK MPs 1974–1979 UK MPs 1979–1983 UK MPs 1983–1987 Politicians awarded knighthoods 20th-century English lawyers Peter Sutcliffe Life peers created by Elizabeth II