Frederick Lawton (judge)

Sir Frederick Horace Lawton (21 December 1911 – 3 February 2001) was a British barrister and judge who served as Lord Justice of Appeal from 1972 to 1986.

[1] On 4 August 1937 Lawton married Doreen Wilton[b] a typist and the daughter of a Prison Service clerical officer; they had two sons.

[3] Resuming his practice at the bar, initially at Sir Edward Marshall Hall's 3 Temple Gardens, then at 5 King's Bench Walk.

Lawton was appointed to the High Court of Justice in 1961, assigned to the Queen's Bench Division, and received the customary knighthood.

On the civil side, in 1964 Lawton presided over the high-profile libel case bought by Polish-born Dr Wladislaw Dering against the American novelist Leon Uris.

When adjudicating criminal matters, Lawton was regarded as efficient and fair, though prone to pass severe sentences in serious cases.

In 1973, he criticised the Director of Public Prosecutions for offering Bertie Smalls, the first so-called "supergrass", immunity in exchange for his testimony.

On his appointment as chair, the barrister Louis Blom-Cooper described him as "the most knowledgeable and robust exponent of the criminal justice system as an effective instrument of social control".