Oliver Popplewell
Sir Oliver Bury Popplewell (born 15 August 1927) is a British former judge and cricket player. He
Personal life
Popplewell's father was a civil servant.[2] He is the father of four sons,[2] the eldest of whom is the former Cambridge University and Somerset cricketer and now solicitor, Nigel Popplewell,[3] and another of whom, Sir Andrew Popplewell, is now a Lord Justice of Appeal.
A
Education
Popplewell went to
In 2003, Popplewell became one of the oldest mature students at the
Cricket
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Source: CricInfo, 12 April 2023 |
Popplewell was a right-handed
He played for Cambridge University from 1949–51 at the time when the Rev David Sheppard was playing for the university, for the MCC in 1953 and for the Free Foresters from 1952–60.[3]
His sole bowling stint was three balls[11] for the MCC against Cambridge University in 1953.[12] He was president of the MCC from 1994–1996.[2]
Legal career
Popplewell was
Cases
In 1975 he defended his godson Stephen Fry, who was 18 at the time, at his trial for credit card fraud. Popplewell and his wife had long been friends of Fry's parents.[2][5] Stephen Fry writes about the event in his autobiography Moab Is My Washpot.
Following the fire at Valley Parade, the Bradford City stadium, on 11 May 1985, Popplewell was chosen to chair an inquiry held under the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975. Following this inquiry, he was chosen to chair a Committee of Inquiry into Crowd Safety at Sports Grounds. In 1999, he donated the papers of the inquiry to the University of Bradford.[16] A copy of the Committee of Inquiry into Crowd Safety and Control at Sports Grounds' Interim Report is published online in PDF format by the Bradford City Fire website.[17]
He presided over the libel case brought by
While presiding over the High Court case brought by the athlete
He upheld the defence of
Since his retirement, Popplewell has spoken up for the right of judges to impose the sentences they see fit. He had an argument with Home Secretary David Blunkett who was seeking to introduce mandatory minimum sentences for some serious crimes.[2][19]
Hillsborough controversy and the Bradford City stadium fire developments
On 19 October 2011 he sparked fury by calling on the Liverpool families involved in the
His letter was published by the Times sister paper, The Sun, which is boycotted on Merseyside, the day after it was revealed to Parliament that senior policemen had changed the evidence of junior policemen whose evidence contradicted the official version given to the press by police spokesmen. Popplewell was widely criticised for his comments,[22] including a rebuke from a survivor of the Bradford stadium disaster.[23]
In April 2015 Popplewell expressed the view that it was "bizarre" to suggest that the Bradford City stadium fire was anything other than accidental. This was in response to the publication of an article in The Guardian newspaper of an extract from a newly-published book Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire by Martin Fletcher. The extract of the Fletcher book contained previously unpublicised information about eight earlier fires allegedly connected to the Bradford City owner and chairman, Stafford Heginbotham (who died in 1995).[24][25][26]
Popplewell later qualified his remark and suggested that the police should look into the "remarkable number" of fires allegedly connected to Bradford City's then chairman "to see if there was anything sinister". He had earlier said that he remained convinced that the fire was "undoubtedly" started by accident by a discarded match or cigarette, despite the new evidence.[25][27]
Works
- Benchmark: Life, laughter and the law. Foreword by Stephen Fry. London: ISBN 978-1-86064-886-1.
- Football in Its Place: An Environmental Psychology of Football Grounds by ISBN 978-0-415-01240-9
- Final report of the Committee of Inquiry into Crowd Safety and Control at Sports Grounds, London: HMSO, 1986, ISBN 9780101971003, Presented to Parliament by the Secretary of State for the Home Department and the Secretary of State for Scotland by command of Her Majesty January 1986. (Archived 5 June 2023 at the Wayback Machine. [Archived PDF copy sourced — via Hatful of Historywebsite by historian Evan Smith])
- Interim report of the Committee of Inquiry into Crowd Safety and Control at Sports Grounds, London: HMSO, 1985, ISBN 9780101958509
- Interim report of the Committee of Inquiry into Crowd Safety and Control at Sports Grounds, London: HMSO, 1985,
References
- )
- ^ a b c d e f g h Dyer, Clare (20 May 2003). "The real world of Oliver Popplewell". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 July 2008.
- ^ a b "Teams played for by Oliver Popplewell". CricketArchive. Retrieved 26 July 2008.
- ^ "Profile: Dame Elizabeth Gloster". The Independent. 31 August 2012.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-09-180161-8.
- ISBN 978-1-86064-886-1. Online access via Internet Archive available to users with print disabilities.
- —; Fry, Stephen (2003). "Foreword". Benchmark: Life, laughter, and the law. p. xv.
- ^ a b "The Honourable Sir Oliver Popplewell". ADR Chambers International. Retrieved 26 July 2008.
- ^ a b Johnson, Rachel (1 November 2003). "The oldest fresher in town". The Spectator. Retrieved 27 July 2008.
- ^ Burns, Emma (10 May 2005). "The old course at St Andrews?". The Times. Times Newspapers. Retrieved 27 July 2008.
- ^ ISBN 978-1-84731-830-5.
With reference to your recent coverage of the Bradford City fire and Martin Fletcher's book about it ('No accident': stadium fire that killed 56, 16 April, and several subsequent reports) [...] while Mr Fletcher's book is rightly a tribute to his industry and is an emotional record of the terrible tragedy suffered by his family, I have to say that his conclusion that the fire was caused by arson is, in my view, nonsense.
- Fletcher, Martin (15 April 2015). "The Story of the Bradford Fire: 'could any man really be as unlucky as Stafford Heginbotham?'". The Guardian.
- Extracted from Fletcher, Martin (2015). Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire. Bloomsbury. ISBN 9781472920164.
- Extracted from Fletcher, Martin (2015). Fifty-Six: The Story of the Bradford Fire. Bloomsbury.
- Taylor, Daniel (27 April 2015). "Bradford fire: Sir Oliver Popplewell defends 1985 inquiry – interview in full". The Guardian.
- Taylor, Daniel (27 April 2015). "Bradford fire: Sir Oliver Popplewell says new inquiry would find nothing sinister". The Guardian.