Melford Stevenson - Judicial Career

Judicial Career

... without knowing what bodies, political or other, Melford belonged to, it would be safe to say that he was on the right wing of all of them.

“ ” —Lord Devlin

Bathurst used to recount the story of Stevenson trying a manslaughter case in which a man who had run over a child pleaded, in extenuation, that he had thought the child was a dog; the judge, a great spaniel lover, promptly gave him the maximum sentence.

“ ”

I must confess I cannot tell whether you are innocent or guilty. I am giving you three years. If you are guilty you have got off lightly, if innocent let this be a lesson to you.

“ ” —Melford Stevenson

Stevenson was appointed a High Court judge on 1 October 1957, and (as is traditional) was knighted a few days later. From 1958 until 1960 he was a member of an Inter-Departmental Committee on Human Artificial Insemination. For the first four years of his judicial career Stevenson was assigned to the Probate, Divorce and Admiralty Division, after which he was transferred to the Queen's Bench Division, where he presided over criminal cases. He then began to attract press attention. Known for his outspokenness, Stevenson described one case as a "pretty anaemic kind of rape", because the victim was the accused's ex-girlfriend and had been hitch-hiking, before sentencing the man to a two-year suspended sentence. To a man acquitted of rape, he remarked "I see you come from Slough. It is a terrible place. You can go back there." In similar vein he told a husband involved in a divorce case that his decision to live in Manchester was "a wholly incomprehensible choice for any free man to make".

Following a 1964 parallel of his comments in the wake of the Bodkin Adams case, Stevenson attracted criticism for his summing up to the jury in the case of Ryan (1964) 50 Cr App R 144, at 148:

It is, we think, clear ... that it is wrong to say to a jury "Because the accused exercised what is undoubtedly his right, the privilege of remaining silent, you may draw an inference of guilt"; it is quite a different matter to say "this accused, as he is entitled to do, has not advanced at an earlier stage the explanation that has been offered to you today; you the jury may take that into account when you are assessing the weight that you think it right to attribute to the explanation."

Professor of English law Rupert Cross described Stevenson's pronouncement as "gibberish", and to the Court of Appeal in 1977 it seemed that Stevenson had made a distinction "without a difference". Stevenson was, however, ahead of his time: Parliament has since chosen to enact precisely the approach he propounded.

Stevenson believed that it was the judge's duty to help prevent crime by imposing robust punishments on those found guilty, and he became noted for the severity of his sentencing, which led to occasional calls from the "liberal establishment" for his resignation. In 1969 he sentenced the Kray twins, Reggie and Ronnie, to a minimum of 30 years in jail each, saying, "In my view, society has earned a rest from your activities." He remarked later that the Krays had only told the truth twice during the trial: when Reggie referred to a barrister as "a fat slob" and when Ronnie accused the judge of being biased.

In 1970 he controversially gave what were seen as excessively long sentences to eight Cambridge University students who took part in the Garden House riot, a demonstration against the Greek military government that turned violent. He noted that the sentences would have been even longer but for the students' exposure to "the evil influence of some members of the university". The following year he gave a 15-year sentence to Jake Prescott, a member of the Angry Brigade, for conspiracy to cause explosions. Prescott had been found not guilty of direct involvement in the bombings, but had admitted to addressing three envelopes. His sentence was reduced to ten years on appeal.

Stevenson turned down a chance to join the Court of Appeal, a decision he later regretted, and was subsequently critical of some of its decisions. He was appointed a Privy Counsellor in the 1973 New Year Honours. His reference to the Sexual Offences Act 1967 as a "buggers' charter" earned him a reprimand from the Lord Chancellor Elwyn Jones, and a parliamentary motion in the UK House of Commons calling for his resignation. In 1976 the Court of Appeal overturned three of Stevenson's decisions in a single day, and Labour MP Marcus Lipton tabled another parliamentary motion calling for his removal from the bench.

But Eustace Roskill cautions that "It would be wrong to judge Stevenson simply by the notoriety of a few cases .... he showed great mercy to those whom he saw to be victims rather than aggressors." In the early 1970s, while conducting training sessions in sentencing for newly appointed recorders, Stevenson summed up his attitude: "You sentence off the top of your head. If the man's a shit, down he goes. If there's something to be said for him, you do your best not to put him inside." Despite his stern and authoritarian reputation, in the 1970s he sometimes submitted letters to the Court of Appeal supporting the reduction of his sentences. It was also the case that for much of the 1960's and 1970's criminal trials of the greatest national importance were habitually entrusted to Stevenson.

When asked towards the end of his career whether he had been stung by the criticism he had received, Stevenson replied "A lot of my colleagues are just constipated Methodists". There was no compulsory retirement age for a judge with Stevenson's length of service, which resulted in some speculation following the announcement of his retirement from the bench in 1979 that perhaps his unpopularity with certain sections of the media and establishment had led to pressure on him to step down.

In an article published on the day of Stevenson's retirement Corinna Adams of The Guardian observed that:

He holds the record among Old Bailey judges for having his sentences queried and taken to appeal. He also holds the record for getting away with it. He has gradually become such a stock hate-figure that lawyers tend automatically to advise their clients, if found guilty, to take their cases higher up.