Melford Stevenson - Career at The Bar

Career At The Bar

Shortly after being called to the bar in 1925 he joined the chambers of Wintringham Stable at 2 Crown Office Row, now Fountain Court Chambers. He remained there for the rest of his legal career except for the war years, eventually becoming head of chambers.

Most of Stevenson's early legal work was in the field of insolvencies, "almost always with small fees", and he made steady progress until the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939. He did very little criminal work in this part of his career. In 1940 he joined the army and served until 1945 as a Deputy Judge Advocate with the rank of major; he was appointed a King's Counsel in 1943. In 1945 he served as Judge Advocate at the war crimes trial in Hamburg of former personnel of the German submarine U-852, the so-called Peleus affair. The U-boat captain, Heinz-Wilhelm Eck, was accused of ordering his crew to open fire on the survivors of a Greek ship, the SS Peleus, which they had just torpedoed and sunk. Eck and two of his junior officers were executed by firing squad; he was the only U-boat commander of the war to be convicted of war crimes committed at sea.

Stevenson was elected a bencher of the Inner Temple in 1950, and appointed Recorder of Cambridge, a part-time judge, in 1952; he had previously served as Recorder for Rye from 1944 to 1951. In 1954 he represented the British Government in Kenya during Jomo Kenyatta's unsuccessful appeal against his conviction for membership of the rebel Mau Mau; Kenyatta was a moderate, and is now considered unlikely to have been a member of the organisation. He was imprisoned until 1959, lived under house arrest until 1961, and became the first president of the newly independent Kenya in 1964. Also in 1954 Stevenson represented the Marten family in the Crichel Down affair. The Air Ministry had compulsorily purchased land for bombing practice before the war, promising to return it after the end of hostilities. When they did not honour this promise, the Martens successfully campaigned to be allowed to buy the land back. The case led to a public enquiry, changes in the law on compulsory purchase, and the first resignation of a government minister since 1917.

According to fellow judge Eustace Roskill, Stevenson's "fluent delivery, distinctive voice, remarkable sense of timing, and pungency of phrase soon marked him out as an advocate of note." One commentator described him as a "shameless performer" in court.

In 1955, aided by junior counsel Sebag Shaw and Peter Rawlinson, Stevenson defended Ruth Ellis against the charge of murdering her lover. Stevenson's decision to keep his cross-examination of the prosecution witnesses to a minimum, and his "near silent performance in court", have been severely criticised by Muriel Jakubait, Ellis's sister. He opened the defence by saying: "Let me make this abundantly plain: there is no question here but this woman shot this man ... You will not hear one word from me – or from the lady herself – questioning that." The jury took 23 minutes to find Ellis guilty; she was sentenced to be hanged, the last woman executed for murder in the United Kingdom. Public revulsion at the case is thought to have played a part in the abolition of capital punishment in the UK in 1969.

Stevenson was a leading member of the legal team assisting Sir Reginald Manningham-Buller during the failed prosecution of alleged serial killer Dr John Bodkin Adams in 1957. The prosecution's conduct of the trial has been heavily criticised, and its decision to drop a second murder charge via a nolle prosequi was scathingly described by the trial judge, Patrick Devlin, as "an abuse of process". Stevenson was of the opinion that had he been allowed to, he "could have successfully prosecuted Adams on six murder counts". Journalist Rodney Hallworth reports that Stevenson said of Adams' decision not to give evidence in court "I firmly believe justice is not served by the present law. It should be possible for the prosecution to directly examine an accused ... It was a clear example of the privilege of silence having enabled a guilty man to escape." In Stevenson's opinion Adams "was so incredibly lucky to have literally got away with murder".