Michael Mansfield (born 12 October 1941) is an English

barrister A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. Their tasks include arguing cases in courts and tribunals, drafting legal pleadings, jurisprud ...

and head of chambers at Nexus Chambers. He was recently described as "The king of

human rights Human rights are universally recognized Morality, moral principles or Social norm, norms that establish standards of human behavior and are often protected by both Municipal law, national and international laws. These rights are considered ...

work" by

The Legal 500 Legalease Ltd. is a global legal research and publishing company founded in the UK in 1987. The company assesses global law firms and lawyers for its publications, annual lists and guides, including ''Legal Business'', ''GC Magazine'' and ''The ...

and as a leading

Silk Silk is a natural fiber, natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be weaving, woven into textiles. The protein fiber of silk is composed mainly of fibroin and is most commonly produced by certain insect larvae to form cocoon (silk), c ...

civil liberties Civil liberties are guarantees and freedoms that governments commit not to abridge, either by constitution, legislation, or judicial interpretation, without due process. Though the scope of the term differs between countries, civil liberties of ...

and human rights (including actions against the police). A British republican,

vegetarian Vegetarianism is the practice of abstaining from the Eating, consumption of meat (red meat, poultry, seafood, insects as food, insects, and the flesh of any other animal). It may also include abstaining from eating all by-products of animal slau ...

socialist Socialism is an economic ideology, economic and political philosophy encompassing diverse Economic system, economic and social systems characterised by social ownership of the means of production, as opposed to private ownership. It describes ...

and self-described "radical lawyer", he has participated in prominent and controversial court cases and inquests including the

Birmingham Six The Birmingham Six were six men from Northern Ireland who were each sentenced to life imprisonment in 1975 following their false convictions for the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings. Their convictions were declared unsafe and unsatisfactory and q ...

, Bloody Sunday massacre, the

Hillsborough disaster The Hillsborough disaster was a fatal crowd crush at a football match at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield, South Yorkshire, England, on 15 April 1989. It occurred during an FA Cup semi-final between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest in the tw ...

and the deaths of

Jean Charles de Menezes Jean may refer to: People * Jean (female given name) * Jean (male given name) * Jean (surname) Fictional characters * Jean Grey, a Marvel Comics character * Jean Valjean, fictional character in novel ''Les Misérables'' and its adaptations * Jean ...

and

Princess Diana Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William ...

and the

McLibel case , known as "the McLibel case", was an English lawsuit for libel filed by McDonald's Corporation against environmental activists Helen Steel and David Morris (often referred to as "The McLibel Two") over a factsheet critical of the company. E ...

Early life

Mansfield grew up in north

Finchley Finchley () is a large district of north London, England, in the London Borough of Barnet. north of Charing Cross, nearby districts include: Golders Green, Muswell Hill, Friern Barnet, Whetstone, London, Whetstone, Mill Hill and Hendon. It is ...

, North London, and attended Holmewood Preparatory School (

Woodside Park Woodside Park is a suburban residential area in the London Borough of Barnet, in the North Finchley postal district of N12. Description The area to the east of the tube station consists predominantly of large Victorian and Edwardian hous ...

) before going to

Highgate School Highgate School, formally Sir Roger Cholmeley's School at Highgate, is a co-educational, fee-charging, private day school, founded in 1565 in Highgate, London, England. It educates over 1,400 pupils in three sections – Highgate Pre-Preparato ...

and the

University of Keele Keele University is a public research university in Keele, approximately from Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire, England. Founded in 1949 as the University College of North Staffordshire, it was granted university status by Royal Charter as ...

, where he graduated with a BA (Hons) in history and philosophy, and was Secretary of Keele's

Students' Union A students' union or student union, is a student organization present in many colleges, universities, and high schools. In higher education, the students' union is often accorded its own building on the campus, dedicated to social, organizat ...

Career

Mansfield was called to the bar at

Gray's Inn The Honourable Society of Gray's Inn, commonly known as Gray's Inn, is one of the four Inns of Court (professional associations for barristers and judges) in London. To be called to the bar in order to practise as a barrister in England and Wale ...

in 1967, became

Queen's Counsel A King's Counsel (Post-nominal letters, post-nominal initials KC) is a senior lawyer appointed by the monarch (or their Viceroy, viceregal representative) of some Commonwealth realms as a "Counsel learned in the law". When the reigning monarc ...

in 1989 and was elected as a

Bencher A bencher or Master of the Bench is a senior member of an Inn of Court in England and Wales or the Inns of Court in Northern Ireland, or the Honorable Society of King's Inns in Ireland. Benchers hold office for life once elected. A bencher c ...

of Gray's Inn in 2007. He is currently the president of the

Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers is a socialist and legal campaigning organisation in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1930 to provide legal support to the then Labour government. The Society was named after Viscount Haldane, a Li ...

. Mansfield is an after-dinner and keynote speaker.

Notable cases

As well as representing those wrongly convicted of the IRA's

Guildford Guildford () is a town in west Surrey, England, around south-west of central London. As of the 2011 census, the town has a population of about 77,000 and is the seat of the wider Borough of Guildford, which had around inhabitants in . The nam ...

and

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands (county), West Midlands, within the wider West Midlands (region), West Midlands region, in England. It is the Lis ...

pub bombings, Mansfield has represented: the

Angry Brigade The Angry Brigade was a British group responsible for a series of armed actions against the establishment in England between 1970 and 1972. Using small bombs, they targeted banks, embassies, a BBC Outside Broadcast vehicle, and the homes of Con ...

; Dolours and

Marian Price Marian Price (born 1954), also known by her married name as Marian McGlinchey, is a former Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer. Born into a Republican family in Belfast, Price joined the IRA in 1971, along with her sister Dolo ...

; Brian Keenan; the Orgreave miners;

Mahmood Hussein Mattan Mahmood Hussein Mattan (1923 – 3 September 1952) was a Somali former merchant seaman who was wrongfully convicted, in the United Kingdom, of the murder of Lily Volpert on 6 March 1952. The murder took place in the Docklands area of Cardiff, ...

Ruth Ellis Ruth Ellis (; 9 October 1926 – 13 July 1955) was a Welsh-born nightclub hostess and convicted murderer who became the last woman to be executed in the United Kingdom following the fatal shooting of her lover, David Blakely. In her teens, ...

and

James Hanratty James Hanratty (4 October 1936 – 4 April 1962), also known as the A6 Murderer, was a British criminal who was one of the final eight people in the UK to be executed before capital punishment was abolished. He was hanged at HM Prison Bedford ...

(in posthumous appeals); those involved in the Israeli Embassy bombing;

Frank Crichlow Frank Gilbert Crichlow (13 July 1932 – 15 September 2010) was a British community activist and civil rights campaigner, who became known in 1960s London as a godfather of black power activism.Lee Jasper, Jasper, Lee"Obituary: Frank Crichlow, fo ...

, owner of the Mangrove restaurant;

Stephen Lawrence Stephen Adrian Lawrence (13September 1974 – 22April 1993) was an 18-year-old black British citizen from Plumstead, southeast London, who was murdered in a racially motivated attack while waiting for a bus on Well Hall Road, Eltham, on the ...

's family;

Michael Barrymore Michael Ciaran Parker (born 4 May 1952), known by his stage name Michael Barrymore, is an English comedian, influencer and television presenter of game shows and light entertainment programmes on British television in the 1980s, 1990s and 200 ...

at the Stuart Lubbock inquest;

Barry George Barry Michael George (born 15 April 1960) is an English man who was found guilty of the murder of English television presenter Jill Dando and whose conviction was overturned on appeal. Dando's profile and popularity ensured high public intere ...

both at the inquest into the death of

Jill Dando Jill Wendy Dando (9 November 1961 – 26 April 1999) was an English journalist, television presenter and newsreader. She spent most of her career at the BBC and was the corporation's Personality of the Year in 1997. At the time of her death, he ...

and George's wrongful conviction; the gangster

Kenneth Noye Kenneth James Noye (born 24 May 1947) is an English criminal and convicted murderer. He was acquitted in 1985 of the murder of a police officer in the grounds of his home, but was convicted in 1986 of conspiracy to handle stolen goods from the ...

; the

Bloody Sunday Bloody Sunday may refer to: Historical events Canada * Bloody Sunday (1923), a day of police violence during a steelworkers' strike for union recognition in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia * Bloody Sunday (1938), police violence agai ...

families;

Arthur Scargill Arthur Scargill (born 11 January 1938) is a British trade unionist who was President of the National Union of Mineworkers (NUM) from 1982 to 2002. He is best known for leading the 1984–1985 UK miners' strike, a major event in the history o ...

;

Angela Cannings Angela Cannings was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment in the UK in 2002 for the murder of her seven-week-old son, Jason, who died in 1991, and of her 18-week-old son Matthew, who died in 1999. Her first child, Gemma, died ...

;

Colin Norris Colin Campbell Norris (born 12 February 1976) is a British serial killer who was convicted of the murder of four elderly patients and the attempted murders of two others in two hospitals in Leeds, England, in 2002. A police investigation showed ...

;

Fatmir Limaj Fatmir Limaj (born 4 February 1971), is a Kosovo-Albanian politician. He is the leader of '' Nisma Socialdemokrate''. Limaj served as Minister of Transport and Telecommunication in the government of the Republic of Kosovo. He was known as "Çel ...

, a

Kosovo Kosovo, officially the Republic of Kosovo, is a landlocked country in Southeast Europe with International recognition of Kosovo, partial diplomatic recognition. It is bordered by Albania to the southwest, Montenegro to the west, Serbia to the ...

-Albanian leader prosecuted in

the Hague The Hague ( ) is the capital city of the South Holland province of the Netherlands. With a population of over half a million, it is the third-largest city in the Netherlands. Situated on the west coast facing the North Sea, The Hague is the c ...

;

Mohamed al-Fayed Mohamed Abdel Moneim Al-Fayed (; 27 January 192930 August 2023) was an Egyptian businessman whose residence and primary business interests were in the United Kingdom from the mid-1960s. His business interests included ownership of the Hôtel R ...

in the inquest into the deaths of his son

Dodi al-Fayed Emad El-Din Mohamed Abdel Mena'em Fayed (; 15 April 195531 August 1997), commonly known as Dodi Fayed, was an Egyptian film producer and the eldest child of the businessman Mohamed Al-Fayed. He was romantically involved with Diana, Princess of W ...

and

Diana, Princess of Wales Diana, Princess of Wales (born Diana Frances Spencer; 1 July 1961 – 31 August 1997), was a member of the British royal family. She was the first wife of Charles III (then Prince of Wales) and mother of Princes William, ...

; the

Cambridge Two The Cambridge Two (also known as the Wintercomfort Two) were British Homeless shelter, homeless charity managers, Ruth Wyner and John Brock, who were imprisoned in December 1999 having been judged not to have taken reasonable steps to prevent her ...

; the families of

and Mark Duggan; the

Tottenham Three Keith Henry Blakelock QGM, a London Metropolitan Police constable, was murdered on 6 October 1985 during the Broadwater Farm riot in Tottenham, north London. The riot broke out after Cynthia Jarrett died of heart failure during a police searc ...

and the Cardiff Five. In March 2019 Mansfield was engaged by the family of footballer

Emiliano Sala Emiliano Raúl Sala Taffarel (; 31 October 1990 – 21 January 2019) was an Argentine professional association football, footballer who played as a striker (association football), striker. After playing youth football in Argentina and following ...

to represent their interests in the dispute over his death. Mansfield has been referred to as a "

champagne socialist Champagne socialist is a political term commonly used in the United Kingdom. It is a popular epithet that implies a degree of hypocrisy, and it is closely related to the concept of the liberal elite. The phrase is used to describe self-identifie ...

" though he has said that 95 per cent of his work comes from

legal aid Legal aid is the provision of assistance to people who are unable to afford legal representation and access to the court system. Legal aid is regarded as central in providing access to justice by ensuring equality before the law, the right ...

Lockerbie bombing

Warning against over-reliance upon

forensic science Forensic science combines principles of law and science to investigate criminal activity. Through crime scene investigations and laboratory analysis, forensic scientists are able to link suspects to evidence. An example is determining the time and ...

to secure convictions, Mansfield in the

BBC Scotland BBC Scotland is a division of the BBC and the main public broadcaster in Scotland. Its headquarters are in Glasgow, employing approximately 1,250 staff as of 2017, to produce 15,000 hours of television and radio programming per year. BBC Scotla ...

Frontline Scotland ''BBC Scotland Investigates'' is a current affairs programme broadcast in Scotland by BBC Scotland. It is broadcast regularly on BBC One Scotland on weekday nights, currently with varying timeslots. Previously known as ''Frontline Scotland'', t ...

'' TV programme "Silence over Lockerbie", broadcast on 14 October 1997, said he wanted to make just one point:

Forensic science is not immutable. They're not written in tablets of stone, and the biggest mistake that anyone can make—public, expert or anyone else alike—is to believe that forensic science is somehow beyond reproach: it is not! The biggest miscarriages of justice in the United Kingdom, many of them emanate from cases in which forensic science has been shown to be wrong. And the moment a forensic scientist or anyone else says: 'I am sure this marries up with that' I get worried.

Political views

In November 2019, along with other public figures, Mansfield signed a letter supporting Labour Party leader

Jeremy Corbyn Jeremy Bernard Corbyn (; born 26 May 1949) is a British politician who has been Member of Parliament (United Kingdom), Member of Parliament (MP) for Islington North (UK Parliament constituency), Islington North since 1983. Now an Independent ...

, describing him as "a beacon of hope in the struggle against emergent far-right nationalism, xenophobia and racism in much of the democratic world", and endorsed Corbyn in the

2019 UK general election The 2019 United Kingdom general election was held on Thursday 12 December 2019, with 47,074,800 registered voters entitled to vote to elect 650 Members of Parliament (MPs) to the House of Commons. The governing Conservative Party, led by Prim ...

. In December 2019, along with 42 other leading cultural figures, he signed a letter endorsing the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership in the 2019 general election. The letter stated that "Labour's election manifesto under Corbyn's leadership offers a transformative plan that prioritises the needs of people and the planet over private profit and the vested interests of a few."

Charity work

He is an environmental and animal rights activist and in 2019 said that meat may become banned in the future, and there should be a law made to criminalise

ecocide Ecocide (from Greek 'home' and Latin 'to kill') is the destruction of the natural environment, environment by humans. Ecocide threatens all human populations that are dependent on natural resources for maintaining Ecosystem, ecosystems and ensu ...

, or destruction of the environment as a result of intensive animal agriculture. Mansfield is a patron of the animal rights organisation Viva! (Vegetarians International Voice for Animals) and refers to meat production as "genocide". He is also patron of Hastings Advice and Representation Centre, a charity providing free welfare benefit advice and representation for local people in

Hastings Hastings ( ) is a seaside town and Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough in East Sussex on the south coast of England, east of Lewes and south east of London. The town gives its name to the Battle of Hastings, which took place to th ...

, East Sussex and the surrounding area. He is a co-founder and trustee of the charity Silence of Suicide (SOS).

Personal life

Mansfield has been married three times. He was married for 19 years to Melian Bordes, with whom he had five children, Johnathan, Anna, Louise, Leo and Kieran, and for 30 years to the artist/filmmaker Yvette Vanson, from whom he separated in 2014 and with whom he had a son, Fred. He has been with his current wife, Yvette Greenway, since 2015. His daughter, Anna, died by suicide in May 2015."Mansfield on daughter's suicide: 'Why didn't you tell me it was that bad?"
BBC News, 4 February 2016.

References

External links

Nexus, the Chambers of Michael Mansfield QC
Michael Mansfield's Chambers {{DEFAULTSORT:Mansfield, Michael 1941 births Living people People from Finchley People educated at Highgate School Alumni of Keele University English lawyers Members of Gray's Inn English barristers British King's Counsel British republicans English animal rights activists English environmentalists English human rights activists English legal professionals English legal writers English socialists Human rights lawyers