Brown became a Privy Counsellor in 1983[5] and was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal (1983–88)[6] and, finally, President of the Family Division (1988–99) of the High Court of England and Wales.

On 19 November 1992, he delivered the landmark ruling that doctors treating Tony Bland, who had been in a persistent vegetative state since suffering serious brain damage in the Hillsborough disaster more than three years earlier, could withdraw food and treatment keeping him alive.

Treatment was ultimately withdrawn on 22 February 1993, after the House of Lords rejected an appeal by the Official Solicitor, and Mr Bland died on 3 March 1993.

[7] He was a member of the Parole Board of England and Wales from 1967 to 71, of the Butler Committee on mentally abnormal offenders[4] from 1972 to 1975, and of the Advisory Council on Penal System in 1977.

Brown was appointed a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the British Empire (GBE) in the 1999 Birthday Honours "for services to the Family Court System.