5 minute read
C Celebrate the Life Master Stanley Brodie
CELEBRATE THE LIFE: MASTER STANLEY BRODIE
Colourful silk who revelled in the theatre of the courtroom and established key case law on the crime of endangering life.
Stanley Brodie’s glass was invariably half full, no matter how damaging the blow. “I won the right to open in the Court of Appeal,” was his breezy retort after a defeat in the High Court. His colleague Michael Beloff QC described him as “the epitome of an adherent to Rudyard Kipling’s injunction to treat triumph and disaster just the same”, which was just as well as he tended to represent clients of dubious reputation.
Brodie specialised in commercial law. He defended the Turkish-Cypriot businessman Asil Nadir on charges of theft and false accounting involving up to £200 million in the collapse of Polly Peck International, and represented Trendtex, a Swiss corporation, in a case against Credit Suisse that centred on the way in which the company financed its dealings with the Central Bank of Nigeria.
He also appeared for Imperial Tobacco, seeking a declaration that the company’s Spot Cash lottery would not breach gaming laws. He was successful in the Court of Appeal, but the House of Lords rejected his argument, saying that it could not pre-empt a potential criminal investigation. Yet he declared his mission accomplished: the publicity surrounding the case had increased the company’s market share.
Imperial Tobacco provided much lucrative work thanks to its refusal to settle cases brought by employees. Beloff recalled that there was always a certain moment when, whatever happened, the briefs were deemed delivered and the client paid the lawyers’ fees. In one case they were to be deemed delivered at 9pm and the pair sat patiently in Brodie’s room until the clock struck that hour, at which point the not particularly athletic Brodie leapt up and declared: “We did it.”
Brodie was not only a marvellous pleader but also creative in his arguments. He once represented a student who wanted to be called to the Bar but had failed the exams four times, the maximum number permitted. Brodie said that the process breached the first rule of natural justice, which is to hear the other side, adding in words whose very opacity carried a concealed threat: “And otherwise left much to be desired.”
On another occasion he was appearing in the Court of Appeal, where it was the custom to allow counsel confidential advance sight of a reserved judgment so that they might prepare to give notice of a further appeal. When the presiding judge asked in court if Brodie would be making such an application, he caused uproar by replying that he had no doubt that it was an excellent judgment, but he did not know if his client would be appealing against it because he had not yet read it.
One of Brodie’s early cases, R v Cunningham (1957), is still taught to law students. He was appearing on behalf of a man who had removed a gas meter to steal the money inside, but in so doing had allowed gas to leak, poisoning his future mother-in-law. The man’s conviction was quashed on appeal because, as Brodie argued, mens rea, the intention to commit the crime of endangering life, had not been established. It gave rise to the notion of ‘Cunningham recklessness’, whether the defendant foresaw the harm that occurred.
As a member of 2 Hare Court and later Blackstone Chambers, Brodie was a mentor to generations of younger barristers and was especially encouraging to women in the profession. When one junior colleague who had just given birth was due to argue a case in court, he told her: “Don’t worry, I’ll do it. You just turn up.” Stanley Eric Brodie was born in Allerton, near Bradford, in 1930, the son of Abraham Brodie, a doctor, and his wife Cissie (née Garstein); his uncle, Israel Brodie, was Chief Rabbi from 1948 to 1965. He was educated at Bradford Grammar School and read law at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was President of the Law Society and friends with Jeremy Thorpe, the pair enjoying weekly lunches at the Shamrock restaurant. When Thorpe became Treasurer of the Liberal Party, he appointed Brodie as an unpaid deputy, though Brodie had no recollection of his responsibilities.
He was a law lecturer at the University of Southampton, practised on the North Eastern Circuit and was called to The Bar in 1954. Two years later he was fined £3 for speeding, the first of several similar run-ins with the authorities.
His first marriage, in 1956, was to Gillian Joseph, the actress daughter of Sir Maxwell Joseph, a property tycoon. They had two daughters, Charlotte and Henrietta, who lead private lives. The marriage was dissolved, and he met Elizabeth Gloster at a Lincoln’s Inn ball. They were married in 1973 and she became known as Britain’s highest-earning female barrister before her elevation to the Bench.
He is survived by their daughter, Sophie, a former journalist who now works in the City, and their son, Sam, a City lawyer. After his divorce Brodie bought a Rolls-Royce. When Sophie stood for the Conservatives in Doncaster North against Ed Miliband at the 2010 general election Brodie drove to the constituency in his new car to support her, although it was perhaps not quite the image she had been hoping to project.
He took silk in 1975, was a Recorder of the Crown Court and from 1984 to 1989 was a deputy official referee, now known as a judge of the Technology and Construction Court. In 2000 he was Treasurer of The Inner Temple.
Enjoying an expansive lifestyle, he attended opera at Glyndebourne, spoke fluent Italian and kept a speedboat that he moved around various Italian ports. Brodie later bought a yacht that was moored at Troon, close to his estate in Ayrshire.
He became trenchant in his views, taking issue with a recent reorganisation of The Inner Temple library. He was a frequent correspondent to The Times letters page and a plan in 2011 to cut the number of Magistrates Courts was one of many subjects to draw his ire. For more than 40 years he was unwavering in his opposition to the European Union and in 2019 produced a pamphlet arguing that the courts had no role to play in deciding Brexit.
Brodie’s flair for the theatre of the court never wavered. Beloff records how once his colleague arrived for a 10.30am sitting after the court had taken their seats. He apologised, saying that his watch said 10.29am. The presiding judge said: “Mr Brodie, my watch says 10.31”, to which Brodie responded with selfsacrificing sycophancy: “Your lordship’s watch is always right.”
Stanley Brodie QC was born on July 2, 1930. He died of kidney disease on May 3, 2022, aged 91.
Courtesy of The Times / News Licensing (abridged)
