HAS BEEN TWENTY YEARS ON THE BENCH.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 19237, 26 November 1930, Page 15

HAS BEEN TWENTY YEARS ON THE BENCH.

MR JUSTICE AVORY HAS TRIED FAMOUS CASES. Mr Justice Avory, probably the bestknown of modern judges, is now in his 80th year. During the twenty years he has been on Uije Bench he has presided over more famous trials than any other living judge. Cold logic has always been Mr Justice Avorv’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’s 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 like a mask, his voice cutting like a knife across irrelevances, Mr Justice Avory is the personification of justice. He can be very caustic when necessary. During the trial of ex-Ser-geant Goddard there was a very disturbing outburst of coughing, and the Judge remarked. “This is not a sanatorium, nor is there any prize for the loudest cough.” Mr Justice Avory is a humane and understanding During a trial at Taunton, a little girl had to give some painful evidence, and the Judge had her brought to the Bench. He placed her on his knee, and talked to her in a kindly and reassuring way. > Patrick Mahon, the Eastbourne murderer, Yaquier, the French poisoner, Thorne, the Orowborough murderer, and Browne 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 twenty 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 nor 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.