William Benjamin Synge Stephens, Lord Stephens of Creevyloughgare, PC (born 28 December 1954) is a British judge who serves as a Justice of the United Kingdom Supreme Court and previously served as a Lord Justice of Appeal on the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal.

Early life and education

He was educated at

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

Swanbourne House School and

Campbell College Campbell College located in Belfast, Northern Ireland and founded in 1894 comprises a preparatory school department (junior age) and a senior Northern Ireland 'Voluntary Grammar' school, the latter meaning, in terms of provision of education, a ...

. He attended the

University of Manchester , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

and graduated with a first-class

LLB Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

Career

In 1977 he was called to the

Bar of Northern Ireland The Bar of Northern Ireland is the professional association of barristers for Northern Ireland, with over 600 members. It is based in the Bar Library, beside the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast, together with the Bar Council of Northern Irel ...

. He was called to the

Bar of England and Wales Barristers in England and Wales are one of the two main categories of lawyer in England and Wales, the other being solicitors. Barristers have traditionally had the role of handling cases for representation in court, both defence and prosecutio ...

in 1978, and the

Bar of Ireland The Bar of Ireland ( ga, Barra na hÉireann) is the professional association of barristers for Ireland, with over 2,000 members. It is based in the Law Library, with premises in Dublin and Cork. It is governed by the General Council of the Ba ...

in 1996. He was appointed a QC in 1996. He was appointed a High Court judge in Northern Ireland in 2007, and as such 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 ...

. He was appointed 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 ...

in Northern Ireland in September 2017. As an Appeal Court Judge he was sworn in as a Member of the

Privy Council of the United Kingdom The Privy Council (PC), officially His Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council, is a formal body of advisers to the sovereign of the United Kingdom. Its membership mainly comprises senior politicians who are current or former members of e ...

in 2017. On the 1 October 2020 he become a Justice of the United Kingdom Supreme Court, following the retirement of

Lord Kerr of Tonaghmore Brian Francis Kerr, Baron Kerr of Tonaghmore, (; 22 February 19481 December 2020) was a Northern Irish barrister and a senior judge who was Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland and then a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. ...

. On assuming office, he took the

judicial courtesy title A courtesy title is a form of address in systems of nobility used for children, former wives and other close relatives of a peer, as well as certain officials such as some judges and members of the Scottish gentry. These styles are used "by court ...

of Lord Stephens of Creevyloughgare. In 2022, he and Lord Hamblen of Kersey gave the ruling in ''

ZXC v Bloomberg A metasyntactic variable is a specific word or set of words identified as a placeholder in computer science and specifically computer programming. These words are commonly found in source code and are intended to be modified or substituted before ...

'' that individuals investigated by police have a

reasonable expectation of privacy Expectation of privacy is a legal test which is crucial in defining the scope of the applicability of the privacy protections of the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. It is related to, but is not the same as, a ''right to privacy ...

not to be named in the media unless charged with an offence.

Personal life

He married Nicola Gladys Skrine in 1982, with whom he has one son and one daughter.

References

Living people Knights Bachelor Members of the Privy Council of the United Kingdom British King's Counsel Alumni of the University of Manchester 1954 births {{UK-law-bio-stub