20 YEARS ON BENCH

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3242, 13 December 1930, Page 6

20 YEARS ON BENCH

NOTED CRIME CASES RECALLED Mr. Mr. Justice Avory, probably the best known of modern judges, is now in his 80th year. During the 20 years he has been on the Bench he has presided over more famous trials than any other living Judge. Cold logic has always been Mr. Justice Avory’s greatest asset, and, though he is always scrupulously fair, his disregard for all irrelevant sentiment has made him the Judge most feared by wrong-doers, says Reynolds Newspaper. He sits absolutely impassive and unmoved by sentiment or emotion. He holds the scales evenly and impartially, and his decisions are seldom appealed against successfully. The Judge’s face is like a mask, his voice cutting like a knife across irrelevances, Mr. Justic Avory is the personification of justice. He can be very caustic when necessary. During the trial of ex-Sergeant Goddard there was a very disturbing outburst of coughing, and the Judge remarked, “This is not a sanatorium, nor is there any prize for tne loudest cough. Mr. Justice Avory is a humane and understanding man. During a trial at Taunton, a little girl had to give some painful evidence, and the Judge had her brought to his Bench. He placed her on his knee, and talked to her in a kindly and reassuring way. Patrick Mahon, the Eastbourne murderer, Vaquier, the French poisoner, and Thorne the Crowborough murderer, and Brown and Kennedy, who killed Police Constable Gutteridge, were all sentenced to death by Mr. Justice Avory. The son of a lawyer who was for many years clerk at the Old Bailey, Horace Avory was born in 1851 and, after a brilliant scholastic career at King’s College and Corpus Christi, Cambridge, he was called to the Bar at the age of 23. Mr. Avory was appointed to the Bench at the age of 59. His dispassionate manner and his comprehensive and accurate reviews of evidence have been a feature of famous criminal trials during the last 20 years. It was Mr. Justice Avory who sentenced Clarence Hatry and his associates. The logic with which he analysed Hatry’s plea—“stripped of rhetorical language it is nothing more or less than, the threadbare plea of every clerk or servant who robs his master.

. . . * except that yours is on a larger scale . . .”—was typical of the attitude which he has adopted throughout his long career both at the Bar and on the Bench.