Benchmark Life Laughter & the Law

'Sir Oliver Popplewell's career goes a long way to explode myths and to show what judges are really like: impartial, skilled in the law, above party politics certainly, but essentially human. He was certainly born into a comfortable middle-class family, but his upbringing was (to quote from Stephen Fry's Foreword to this book) 'more Betjeman Metroland than Wodehouse Mayfair'. However, he did attend good schools, including Charterhouse, where he was part of a notable intake of pupils. He played cricket there with Peter May, a legendary figure in world cricket, Simon Raven the novelist, and Jim, now Lord, Prior. He read law at Queens' College, Cambridge, and obtained a highly-prized cricket Blue at a time when the Oxford and Cambridge XIs were a leading part of the first-class country and international cricket circuit.' He was called to the Bar at the Middle Temple and a successful career at the junior bar and on the Oxford and Midland Circuit culminated in his becoming a QC and his subsequent elevation to the High Court Bench. Various high profile cases followed including the Jonathan Aitken libel case - of huge media interest heightened by the performance of George Carman. Oliver Popplewell's interest in and understanding of professional sport is reflected in some of the leading cases involving sport personalities which came before him - Lawrence Dallaglio, the England rugby captain, or the sprinter Linford Christie in Christie v. McVicar - McVicar the editor of Spike magazine. And this interest gave him other demanding roles, like the public enquiry into the tragic fire at the Bradford City football ground and safety at sports grounds, or the reforms at Lords and the MCC - matters of great interest to the sport-following public.