Gareth Peirce - Recognition and Reception

Recognition and Reception

Her role in the defence of the Guildford Four was dramatised in the 1994 film In the Name of the Father, with Peirce portrayed by Emma Thompson. Peirce has reportedly never watched the film and stated in 1995 that she was "an extremely unimportant participant in the story" but was "given a seemingly important status".

She was appointed CBE in 1999 for services to justice, but later wrote to Downing Street asking for it to be withdrawn, accepting responsibility and tendering an apology for any misunderstanding.

Sir Ludovic Kennedy, a campaigner against miscarriages of justice, dedicated a book to Peirce, calling her "the doyenne of British defence lawyers" and that she "refuses to be defeated in any case no matter how unfavourable it looks". Benedict Birnberg, who first employed her as a solicitor, believes she has "transformed the criminal justice scene in this country almost single-handedly".

Michael Gove, a journalist and later a Conservative MP, once described her as being a "passionate, committed and effective supporter of the Trotskyist Socialist Alliance", which he said was committed to destabilising the Establishment. In 2005, Gove told The Sunday Telegraph that as well as serving her clients, she also has an "idealism that is motivated by a political agenda".

Peirce was one of the initial eight people inducted in March 2007 into Justice Denied magazine's Hall of Honor for her lifetime achievement in aiding the wrongly convicted.