[1] His father died when he was nine years old,[2] but with financial assistance from an uncle[1] he was educated at Stonyhurst College near Clitheroe in Lancashire, before entering the University of Edinburgh aged 16.
Those whom I have sent to Barlinnie or Saughton do not know how lucky they are compared to those poor bastards despatched to Changi gaol or the Japanese camps.After the war, Brand finished his studies at the University of Edinburgh.
[1] Encouraged by Sir Ernest Wedderburn, a solicitor and former Law Professor at Edinburgh who had befriended him after his father's death,[2] Brand was admitted as an advocate in 1948.
The duty of prosecuting counsel is not to obtain a conviction, but to present the Crown case fully and fairly before the jury.
From 1959 to 1970 he served as chairman of the Medical Appeal Tribunal, where his humane approach contrasted with his severity in criminal matters.
[2] He was promoted to Senior Advocate-Depute in 1964,[2] and to his first judicial post in 1968, as Sheriff of Dumfries and Galloway[6] – an office previously held by his father.
[1] After only two years as a sheriff, Brand was appointed in June 1970 as Solicitor General for Scotland[7] in the newly elected Conservative government of Edward Heath.
The more senior Scottish law officer, Lord Advocate Norman Wylie, was an MP, so they divided their duties accordingly.
At a ceremony in the Court of Session attended by 16 judges, the oath of allegiance was administered by Lord Emslie.
[15] They acknowledged that Hale's 17th-century view that a "husband cannot be guilty of a rape committed by himself upon his lawful wife" persisted in England, but noted that David Hume's assertion of the principle in his 1797 work Commentaries on the Laws of Scotland respecting crimes appeared to have been borrowed from Hale.
[19] The judge overturned McCluskey's decision, ruling that it would be "invidious ... to expose the complainer to any risk of public pressure by passing any comment on matters that lie outside her expertise".
[22] Brand retired from the Court in 1989, aged 66, but worked intermittently as a temporary judge until shortly before his death.
[2] In 1969, Brand married again to Veronica (Vera) Lynch (née Russell), a widow who had been a bridesmaid at his first wedding.
[1] Brand died in North Berwick on 14 April 1996, leaving his widow Vera, 4 daughters and five grandchildren.