Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard

Rayner Goddard, Baron Goddard (April 10, 1877 – May 29, 1971) was Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 1946 to 1958 and known for his heavy sentencing and reactionary views.

Background

Goddard attended Marlborough College, where he decided on a career in law. In later life he vigorously denied the frequent claims of Lord Jowitt that he had amused his contemporaries by reciting, word for word, the form of the death sentence upon those whom he disliked. He later attended Trinity College, Oxford and was called to the Bar by both the Inner Temple and Gray's Inn in 1899.

He became known as a reasonable advocate in commercial cases on the Western Circuit and was appointed as Recorder of Poole (a part-time Judgeship) in 1917. He was appointed a King's Counsel in 1923, transferred to be Recorder of Bath in 1925, and eventually Recorder of Plymouth in 1928. In the general election of 1929, Goddard agreed, against his better judgment, to contest the Kensington South constituency as an unofficial Conservative candidate. The sitting Conservative MP had been a defendant in a divorce case, and a local committee thought the newly-enfranchised young women voters would refuse to support him. In the end, Goddard won 15% of the vote and the sitting member was returned.

Judicial appointment

In 1932 Goddard was appointed as a full-time Judge of the King's Bench Division of the High Court of England and Wales. After only six years he was promoted again to be a Lord Justice of Appeal. Goddard was known for turning out well-argued and legally convincing judgments but tended to give stiff sentences, especially when he was personally offended by the crime. After another six year stint, he was appointed as a Lord of Appeal in Ordinary.

Lord Chief Justice

Viscount Caldecote, the Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, suffered a stroke in 1945 and suddenly resigned, creating a vacancy at an inopportune moment. The tradition was for the appointment to be a political one, with the Attorney-General stepping up to take it. However, Hartley Shawcross was unwilling and considered too young. The appointment of a stop-gap candidate was expected. As Goddard explained in a 1970 interview "They had to give the job to somebody. There wasn't anybody else available, so Attlee appointed me." The appointment came at a time when the crime rate, and public concern over crime, were both increasing. Through his judgments, Goddard made it clear that he felt that stronger sentences were the way to tackle both.

Political context

Goddard chose to continue his involvement with trials on the frontline, and opted to judge ordinary High Court cases as he was entitled to do. He presided over the 1946 libel trial at which Harold Laski, Chairman of the Labour Party, attempted unsuccessfully to sue the Daily Express for damages when it quoted him as saying that the party must take power "even if it means violence". In 1948 backbench pressure in the House of Commons forced through an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill to suspend capital punishment for five years, and the government automatically commuted all death sentences to life imprisonment. Goddard rallied opposition in the House of Lords, making his maiden speech to oppose not merely the capital punishment amendment but some of the reforms in the main Bill including the abolition of corporal punishment.

In debate, he referred to a case he had tried of an agricultural labourer who had assaulted a jeweller; Goddard gave him a short two months' imprisonment and twelve strokes of the birch because "I was not then depriving the country of the services of a good agricultural labourer over the harvest". The suspension of capital punishment was reversed by 181 to 28, and a further amendment to retain the birch was also passed (though the Lords were later forced to give way on this issue). As the crime rate continued to rise, Goddard became convinced that the Criminal Justice Act 1948 was responsible as it was a 'Gangster's Charter'.

Craig and Bentley

In December 1952 Goddard decided to preside at the trial of Christopher Craig and Derek Bentley, accused of the murder of PC Sidney Miles. 16-year-old Craig had apparently shot Miles while resisting arrest on the roof of a factory he was attempting to rob; Bentley, who was 19 but of limited intelligence, had gone along with him and was accused of urging Craig to shoot. Goddard continually interrupted in support of the prosecution case and gave a heavily slanted summing-up. Both were convicted; while Craig was too young for a death sentence, Bentley was hanged despite his questionable guilt. In 1998 a posthumous appeal against conviction succeeded on the grounds of Goddard's conduct at trial, with the appeal court appeal stating Goddard had denied the defendant "the fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen".

Despite his appointment as a stop-gap, Goddard served twelve years as Lord Chief Justice before retiring. He continued to intervene occasionally in Lords debates and public speeches to put his views on capital and corporal punishment. He died shortly before the controversy over the hanging of Derek Bentley was rehashed, but in a two hour interview to author David Yallop in August 1970 Goddard said that he fully expected the Home Secretary David Maxwell Fyfe to have reprieved Bentley. Yallop quotes Goddard as saying "Yes. I thought Bentley was going to be reprieved. He certainly should have been. There's no doubt in my mind whatsoever that Bentley should have been reprieved". He also said that "I was never consulted over it. In fact he (Fyfe) never consulted anyone. The blame for Bentley's execution rests with Fyfe". However, whilst saying he thought Bentley should have been reprieved, he still expressed strong views in favour of capital punishment.

This is disputed by John Parris in his book "Scapegoat" Duckworth 1991. Parris was Craig's barrister. He claims that Goddard passed on the recommendation of the jury for mercy with a recommendation that it be ignored and Bentley should be hanged.

Criticism

After Goddard's death, he was attacked in the columns of The Times by Bernard Levin who described him as "a calamity" and accused him of vindictiveness and of being a malign influence on penal reform.

References

Lord Goddard: His career and cases by Glyn Jones and Eric Grimshaw (Allan Wingate, London, 1958).
Lord Goddard: My Years With the Lord Chief Justice by Arthur Smith (Weidenfeld and Nicholson, London, 1959) is a sympathetic biography by Goddard's chief clerk.
Scapegoat* John Parris (Duckworth 1991) An account of the Craig and Bentley trial by Craig's barrister.