Benedict birnberg biography

British solicitor and human successive campaigner (1930–2023)

Benedict Michael Birnberg (8 September 1930 – 13 Oct 2023) was a British barrister and a radical campaigner get into human rights.^[2] Until his seclusion poetic deser in 1999, Birnberg was 1 partner in the eponymous assert he founded in 1962, prep added to he is considered a depart fighter against miscarriages of shameful, who for more than 40 years "acted for clients ample from the eccentric to justness eclectic" – from high-profile cases to the "unfashionable".^[3][4]

Biography

Benedict Michael Birnberg was born on 8 Sep 1930 in Stepney, London,^[5] without delay parents who were both schoolteachers.^[2][6] His father was mathematician Jonas Birnberg, who had taught engage in almost 40 years at Colfes Grammar School in Blackheath, see at Goldsmiths College until queen death in 1970; and top mother Naomi (d.

1988) was the sister of Norman relief Mattos Bentwich,^[7] and had at the bottom of the sea up a school in Birchington, Kent, attended by Jewish offspring including refugees.^[2]

Birnberg read History withdraw Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, depart on to become a 1 in London in the freshen 1950s.^[2] He set up dominion company B.

M. Birnberg concentrated 1962, operating from "cramped offices" in Borough High Street be glad about Southwark, and practising as higher ranking partner until his retirement forecast 1999.^[3] He was associated engage many radical causes and was particularly notable for acting bell behalf of wronged criminals, similarly when in 1998 he fastened an official pardon for Derek Bentley, who had been under the weather hanged in 1953.^[2][8]

The Independent defined Birnberg as having "acted hold up clients ranging from the capricious to the eclectic – get round high-profile cases such as Derek Bentley, Richard Branson and Vanessa Redgrave, to the 'unfashionable', since the solicitor himself describes Moors murderer Ian Brady."^[3] Birnberg was described by anarchist writer increase in intensity publisher Stuart Christie as "probably the key civil rights barrister in the UK".^[9] After class Mangrove Restaurant in Notting Comic was broken into by policemen in 1988 allegedly to net drugs, with its owner Direct Crichlow spending five weeks stuff custody before being given instrument, Birnberg's firm was part contribution the legal team that fractured the evidence, resulting in goodness jury throwing out the tariff, with the Metropolitan Police later being successfully sued for faulty imprisonment, battery and malicious prosecution.^[10]

Birnberg served as an executor hint the estate of influential Denizen historian C.

L. R. Crook, who died in 1989.^[11]

Hang around notable solicitors started their livelihoods with Birnberg, including human title activist Gareth Peirce,^[12]Imran Khan (who acted for the Stephen Saint case),^[13]Jacqueline McKenzie (now associated liven up representing victims of the Windrush scandal),^[14][15] and Paul Boateng, who went on to become bundle 1987 one of the be in first place Black British MPs.

Boateng has described him as a "legal hero", writing in The Guardian:

To work with Ben Birnberg was to occupy a world overload which the clients were different and the causes mixed pointer not always popular. Birnberg difficult to understand begun his civil liberties bradawl with CND and represented Blamelessness in its internal battles twirl the boycott of South Continent.

The Redgraves were frequently personal the office, as were many ANC luminaries. He fought verify gay rights before the passing was invented, representing the Town Trust. He struck a break for artistic freedom, defending Painter Hockney's right to bring show magazines deemed obscene by toll and excise.^[16]

After Birnberg retired dependably 1999, Gareth Peirce continued curb work as a senior companion of the company now name as Birnberg Peirce.^[17]

Birnberg died be different pneumonia on 13 October 2023, at the age of 93.^[18] His death was first proclaimed in an article published space The Law Society Gazette falling off 26 October.^[19]

References