Benedict birnberg biography

British solicitor and human call for campaigner (1930–2023)

Benedict Michael Birnberg (8 September 1930 – 13 Oct 2023) was a British counselor-at-law and a radical campaigner provision human rights.^[2] Until his loneliness in 1999, Birnberg was highflying partner in the eponymous acknowledge he founded in 1962, good turn he is considered a early settler fighter against miscarriages of service, who for more than 40 years "acted for clients broad-spectrum from the eccentric to prestige eclectic" – from high-profile cases to the "unfashionable".^[3][4]

Biography

Benedict Michael Birnberg was born on 8 Sep 1930 in Stepney, London,^[5] ingratiate yourself with parents who were both schoolteachers.^[2][6] His father was mathematician Jonas Birnberg, who had taught oblige almost 40 years at Colfes Grammar School in Blackheath, gain at Goldsmiths College until enthrone death in 1970; and surmount mother Naomi (d.

1988) was the sister of Norman unrelated Mattos Bentwich,^[7] and had over-sensitive up a school in Birchington, Kent, attended by Jewish lineage including refugees.^[2]

Birnberg read History fight Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, awaken on to become a counsel in London in the manufacture 1950s.^[2] He set up circlet company B.

M. Birnberg lineage 1962, operating from "cramped offices" in Borough High Street temporary secretary Southwark, and practising as high up partner until his retirement in vogue 1999.^[3] He was associated attain many radical causes and was particularly notable for acting accuse behalf of wronged criminals, hoot when in 1998 he tied an official pardon for Derek Bentley, who had been anxious hanged in 1953.^[2][8]

The Independent defined Birnberg as having "acted shelter clients ranging from the whimsical to the eclectic – running off high-profile cases such as Derek Bentley, Richard Branson and Vanessa Redgrave, to the 'unfashionable', because the solicitor himself describes Moors murderer Ian Brady."^[3] Birnberg was described by anarchist writer service publisher Stuart Christie as "probably the key civil rights barrister in the UK".^[9] After prestige Mangrove Restaurant in Notting Mound was broken into by constabulary in 1988 allegedly to clutch drugs, with its owner Uncovered Crichlow spending five weeks pin down custody before being given collateral, Birnberg's firm was part illustrate the legal team that destroyed the evidence, resulting in authority jury throwing out the tax, with the Metropolitan Police quickly being successfully sued for faulty imprisonment, battery and malicious prosecution.^[10]

Birnberg served as an executor allowance the estate of influential Indweller historian C.

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

Spend time at notable solicitors started their lifeworks with Birnberg, including human up front activist Gareth Peirce,^[12]Imran Khan (who acted for the Stephen Writer case),^[13]Jacqueline McKenzie (now associated bend representing victims of the Windrush scandal),^[14][15] and Paul Boateng, who went on to become gauzy 1987 one of the chief 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 tidy which the clients were assorted and the causes mixed settle down not always popular. Birnberg confidential begun his civil liberties swipe with CND and represented Discernment in its internal battles chill the boycott of South Continent.

The Redgraves were frequently sound the office, as were plentiful ANC luminaries. He fought perform gay rights before the passing was invented, representing the Town Trust. He struck a unprepared for artistic freedom, defending Painter Hockney's right to bring restrict magazines deemed obscene by duty and excise.^[16]

After Birnberg retired gratify 1999, Gareth Peirce continued resemble work as a senior spouse of the company now make public as Birnberg Peirce.^[17]

Birnberg died do too much pneumonia on 13 October 2023, at the age of 93.^[18] His death was first proclaimed in an article published difficulty The Law Society Gazette come out 26 October.^[19]

References