Legal Work
When he had first qualified, Humphreys tended to take criminal defence work which allowed his skills in cross-examination to be used. In 1934, he was appointed as Junior Treasury Counsel at the Central Criminal Court (more commonly known as "the Old Bailey"). This job, known unofficially as the 'Treasury devil', involved leading many prosecutions.
Humphreys became Recorder of Deal in 1942, a part-time judicial post. In the aftermath of World War II, Humphreys was an assistant prosecutor in the War Crimes trials held in Tokyo. In 1950 he became Senior Treasury Counsel. It was at this time that he led for the Crown in some of the causes célèbres of the era, including the Craig and Bentley case and Ruth Ellis and it was Humphreys who secured the conviction of Timothy Evans for a murder later found to have been carried out by John Christie. All three cases played a part in the later abolition of capital punishment in the United Kingdom.
Also in 1950 at the trial of the nuclear spy Klaus Fuchs, Christmas Humphreys was the prosecuting counsel for the Attorney General. In 1955 he was made a Bencher of his Inn and the next year became Recorder of Guildford.
Read more about this topic: Christmas Humphreys
Famous quotes containing the words legal and/or work:
“In 70 he married again, and I having, voluntarily, assumed the legal guilt of breaking my marriage contract, do cheerfully accept the legal penaltya life of celibacybringing no charge against him who was my husband, save that he was not much better than the average man.”
—Jane Grey Swisshelm (18151884)
“Mildred Pierce: You look down on me because I work for a living, dont you? You always have. All right, I work. I cook food and sell it and make a profit on it, which, I might point out, youre not too proud to share with me.
Monte Beragon: Yes, I take money from you, Mildred. But not enough to make me like kitchens or cooks. They smell of grease.
Mildred Pierce: I dont notice you shrinking away from a fifty- dollar bill because it smells of grease.”
—Ranald MacDougall (19151973)