David Napley
Encyclopedia
Sir David Napley was a famous and influential solicitor
in England
.
of Jewish ancestry. He began his articles (the equivalent of a modern-day training contract
) in 1935 at the age of only 16. He passed his final examinations with honours two years later and in 1937 immediately set up in partnership with Sidney Kingsley, establishing internationally recognised law firm Kingsley Napley. The firm quickly established a good reputation. Over the years his clients would include M.P. Jeremy Thorpe
, Princess Michael of Kent
, actress Maria Aitken
(sister of Jonathan Aitken
), the Foreign Office clerk Sarah Tisdall
, M.P. Harvey Proctor
, the Queen's bodyguard Commander Michael Trestrail and the family of the Italian banker Roberto Calvi
.
During the Second World War he served in India
with the Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey)
and was demobilised as a captain. On his return from the War he resumed practice as a solicitor and married his fiancée, Leah Rose Saturley, two years his junior. The couple lived in Mill Hill
, in North-West London
for many years.
The couple had two daughters, Anne Rosemary Josephine (born 14 August 1946) and Penelope Susan (born 28 October 1947).
Napley ran an unsuccessful parliamentary campaign as Conservative candidate in 1951 (Rowley Regis and Tipton) and 1955 (Gloucester
). From 1968 to 1977 he was chairman of Mario and Franco Restaurants.
was eventually established 14 years later.
Napley worked on several suspected miscarriages of justice cases, including the famous one-armed bandit murder
case in the early seventies (which inspired the film Get Carter
) and the Jock Russell case in 1982. Napley took the one-armed bandit murder case to the Court of Appeal twice and finally to the House of Lords.
Napley also played a leading part in the formation of the British Academy of Forensic Sciences which supports research into miscarriages of justice.
From 1963, Napley was chairman of the Law Society's Standing Committee on Criminal Law. From 1971 he served on the Criminal Law Revision Committee
. He was vice-president of the Law Society of England and Wales
from 1975 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 1977. Napley was knighted in 1977. In the same year he went to South Africa
as an independent observer at the inquest into the death of Steve Biko
.
to the public's attention. For many years, Carman was a well-respected barrister on the Northern Circuit
but was relatively unknown in London. However in November 1973, two years after Carman took silk, Napley saw him at the Old Bailey
defending a manager of Battersea Funfair. The man was charged with the manslaughter of four children after the Big Dipper collapsed. Carman secured a verdict of Not Guilty. At the time, Napley said "It seemed to me the jury were mesmerised." Napley determined to make further use of Carman; this was only the start of a long professional relationship between them.
Carman was still based in Manchester
, however, and Napley briefed him only occasionally during the 1970s. However, in June 1978 Napley telephoned Carman to tell him that the leader of the Liberal Party (UK)
, Jeremy Thorpe
, was probably going to be committed for trial on charges of conspiracy to murder and that he was going to retain him. Thorpe was charged on August 4, 1978. It was a case which would make Carman a household name.
, Berkshire
, after an eight-week illness.
Solicitor
Solicitors are lawyers who traditionally deal with any legal matter including conducting proceedings in courts. In the United Kingdom, a few Australian states and the Republic of Ireland, the legal profession is split between solicitors and barristers , and a lawyer will usually only hold one title...
in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
.
Background
Sir David Napley was born in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
of Jewish ancestry. He began his articles (the equivalent of a modern-day training contract
Training contract
A training contract is a compulsory period of practical training in a law firm for law graduates before they can qualify as a solicitor in the United Kingdom, the Republic of Ireland, Australia or Hong Kong...
) in 1935 at the age of only 16. He passed his final examinations with honours two years later and in 1937 immediately set up in partnership with Sidney Kingsley, establishing internationally recognised law firm Kingsley Napley. The firm quickly established a good reputation. Over the years his clients would include M.P. Jeremy Thorpe
Jeremy Thorpe
John Jeremy Thorpe is a British former politician who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 to 1976 and was the Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979. His political career was damaged when an acquaintance, Norman Scott, claimed to have had a love affair with Thorpe at a time...
, Princess Michael of Kent
Princess Michael of Kent
Princess Michael of Kent is an Austrian-Hungarian member of the British Royal Family. She is married to Prince Michael of Kent, who is a grandson of King George V....
, actress Maria Aitken
Maria Aitken
Maria Penelope Katharine Aitken is an English actress, writer, producer and director.Aitken was born in Dublin, the daughter of Sir William Aitken, a Conservative MP, and socialite Penelope Aitken, whose father was John Maffey, 1st Baron Rugby. She is a great-niece of newspaper magnate and...
(sister of Jonathan Aitken
Jonathan Aitken
Jonathan William Patrick Aitken is a former Conservative Member of Parliament in the United Kingdom, and British government minister. He was convicted of perjury in 1999 and received an 18-month prison sentence, of which he served seven months...
), the Foreign Office clerk Sarah Tisdall
Sarah Tisdall
Sarah Tisdall was a Foreign and Commonwealth Office clerical officer who was jailed for leaking British government documents to a newspaper in 1983.-Cruise missiles:...
, M.P. Harvey Proctor
Harvey Proctor
Harvey Proctor was a British Conservative Member of Parliament. He represented Basildon from 1979 to 1983 and Billericay from 1983 to 1987. Proctor became known for his right-wing views and for the manner in which scandal forced the end of his Parliamentary career.- Background :Proctor's father...
, the Queen's bodyguard Commander Michael Trestrail and the family of the Italian banker Roberto Calvi
Roberto Calvi
Roberto Calvi was an Italian banker dubbed "God's Banker" by the press because of his close association with the Holy See. A native of Milan, Calvi was Chairman of Banco Ambrosiano, which collapsed in one of modern Italy's biggest political scandals...
.
During the Second World War he served in India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
with the Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey)
Queen's Royal Regiment (West Surrey)
The Queen's Royal Regiment was a regiment of the English and later British Army from 1661 to 1959. It was the senior English line infantry regiment of the British Army, behind only the Royal Scots in the British Army line infantry order of precedence...
and was demobilised as a captain. On his return from the War he resumed practice as a solicitor and married his fiancée, Leah Rose Saturley, two years his junior. The couple lived in Mill Hill
Mill Hill
Mill Hill is a place in the London Borough of Barnet. It is a suburb situated 9 miles north west of Charing Cross. Mill Hill was in the historic county of Middlesex until it was absorbed by London...
, in North-West London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
for many years.
The couple had two daughters, Anne Rosemary Josephine (born 14 August 1946) and Penelope Susan (born 28 October 1947).
Napley ran an unsuccessful parliamentary campaign as Conservative candidate in 1951 (Rowley Regis and Tipton) and 1955 (Gloucester
Gloucester
Gloucester is a city, district and county town of Gloucestershire in the South West region of England. Gloucester lies close to the Welsh border, and on the River Severn, approximately north-east of Bristol, and south-southwest of Birmingham....
). From 1968 to 1977 he was chairman of Mario and Franco Restaurants.
Miscarriages of Justice
Napley had a particular interest in miscarriages of justice. He was instrumental in setting up the Tom Sargant Memorial lecture and gave the first lecture in 1989. In that lecture he called for an independent tribunal to deal with miscarriage of justice cases. Partly as a result of Napley's reputation and wide-ranging influence, the Criminal Cases Review CommissionCriminal Cases Review Commission
The Criminal Cases Review Commission is an non-departmental public body set up following the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice itself a continuation of the May Inquiry. It aims to investigate possible miscarriages of justice in England, Wales and Northern Ireland...
was eventually established 14 years later.
Napley worked on several suspected miscarriages of justice cases, including the famous one-armed bandit murder
One-armed bandit murder
The one-armed bandit murder was a criminal case in the north east of England. The case involved the murder of Angus Sibbet in 1967. The following trial resulted in life sentences for Dennis Stafford and Michael Luvaglio...
case in the early seventies (which inspired the film Get Carter
Get Carter
Get Carter is a 1971 British crime film directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine as Jack Carter, a gangster who sets out to avenge the death of his brother in a series of unrelenting and brutal killings played out against the grim background of derelict urban housing in the city of...
) and the Jock Russell case in 1982. Napley took the one-armed bandit murder case to the Court of Appeal twice and finally to the House of Lords.
Napley also played a leading part in the formation of the British Academy of Forensic Sciences which supports research into miscarriages of justice.
From 1963, Napley was chairman of the Law Society's Standing Committee on Criminal Law. From 1971 he served on the Criminal Law Revision Committee
Criminal Law Revision Committee
The Criminal Law Revision Committee of England & Wales is a standing committee of learned legal experts that may be called upon by the Home Secretary to advise on legal issues and to report back recommendations for reform...
. He was vice-president of the Law Society of England and Wales
Law Society of England and Wales
The Law Society is the professional association that represents the solicitors' profession in England and Wales. It provides services and support to practising and training solicitors as well as serving as a sounding board for law reform. Members of the Society are often consulted when important...
from 1975 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 1977. Napley was knighted in 1977. In the same year he went to South Africa
South Africa
The Republic of South Africa is a country in southern Africa. Located at the southern tip of Africa, it is divided into nine provinces, with of coastline on the Atlantic and Indian oceans...
as an independent observer at the inquest into the death of Steve Biko
Steve Biko
Stephen Biko was a noted anti-apartheid activist in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s. A student leader, he later founded the Black Consciousness Movement which would empower and mobilize much of the urban black population. Since his death in police custody, he has been called a martyr of the...
.
Working relationship with George Carman Q.C.
Napley was instrumental in bringing famous, charismatic barrister George CarmanGeorge Carman
George Alfred Carman, QC , was a leading English barrister of the 1980s and 1990s. He first came to the attention of the general public in 1979, when he successfully defended the former Liberal leader Jeremy Thorpe after he was charged with conspiracy to murder...
to the public's attention. For many years, Carman was a well-respected barrister on the Northern Circuit
Northern Circuit
The Northern Circuit dates from 1176 when Henry II sent his judges on circuit to do justice in his name. The Circuit encompassed the whole of the North of England but in 1876 it was divided. That part to the west of the Pennines retained the old name. The land to the east became the territory of...
but was relatively unknown in London. However in November 1973, two years after Carman took silk, Napley saw him at the Old Bailey
Old Bailey
The Central Criminal Court in England and Wales, commonly known as the Old Bailey from the street in which it stands, is a court building in central London, one of a number of buildings housing the Crown Court...
defending a manager of Battersea Funfair. The man was charged with the manslaughter of four children after the Big Dipper collapsed. Carman secured a verdict of Not Guilty. At the time, Napley said "It seemed to me the jury were mesmerised." Napley determined to make further use of Carman; this was only the start of a long professional relationship between them.
Carman was still based in Manchester
Manchester
Manchester is a city and metropolitan borough in Greater Manchester, England. According to the Office for National Statistics, the 2010 mid-year population estimate for Manchester was 498,800. Manchester lies within one of the UK's largest metropolitan areas, the metropolitan county of Greater...
, however, and Napley briefed him only occasionally during the 1970s. However, in June 1978 Napley telephoned Carman to tell him that the leader of the Liberal Party (UK)
Liberal Party (UK)
The Liberal Party was one of the two major political parties of the United Kingdom during the 19th and early 20th centuries. It was a third party of negligible importance throughout the latter half of the 20th Century, before merging with the Social Democratic Party in 1988 to form the present day...
, Jeremy Thorpe
Jeremy Thorpe
John Jeremy Thorpe is a British former politician who was leader of the Liberal Party from 1967 to 1976 and was the Member of Parliament for North Devon from 1959 to 1979. His political career was damaged when an acquaintance, Norman Scott, claimed to have had a love affair with Thorpe at a time...
, was probably going to be committed for trial on charges of conspiracy to murder and that he was going to retain him. Thorpe was charged on August 4, 1978. It was a case which would make Carman a household name.
Works
- The Technique of Persuasion, 1971: a seminal work on advocacy and case preparation, still popular with barristers and solicitors.
- Not Without Prejudice, 1982: Napley's memoirs, notable for his outrage at the verdict in the one-armed bandit murder case (see above).
- Murder at the Villa Madeira: The Rattenbury Case, 1988
Death
Napley died on 24th September 1994 of cancer in hospital in SloughSlough
Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...
, Berkshire
Berkshire
Berkshire is a historic county in the South of England. It is also often referred to as the Royal County of Berkshire because of the presence of the royal residence of Windsor Castle in the county; this usage, which dates to the 19th century at least, was recognised by the Queen in 1957, and...
, after an eight-week illness.