His Honour Michael Victor Argyle, MC, QC (31 August 1915 – 4 January 1999) was a British judge at the Central Criminal Court of the United Kingdom from 1970 to 1988.
[2] As a barrister he gained press interest for his defence of Ronnie Biggs in his trial for the Great Train Robbery.
After graduating from practising law into the ranks of the judiciary in 1962, Argyle found himself at odds judicially with elements of the counter-cultural zeitgeist that increasingly dominated English society as the 1960s progressed, reciprocating in kind the animosity he attracted from its proponents in the public sphere with statements and decisions made from his bench which refused to yield to the pervading air of Socialistic relativism and permissiveness, and as a judge representing a judicial authoritarianism from the earlier half of the 20th century.
In an article published on 20 May 1995, Argyle had claimed Dennis and his Oz co-defendants had imported and peddled drugs to school children, and also implied that they were behind threats against his life which had obliged him to stay in a hotel during the trial, guarded by armed Special Branch police.
However he declined to sue Argyle personally, commenting: "Oh, I don't want to make him a martyr of the Right: there's no glory to be had in suing an 80-year-old man and taking his house away from him.