Michael Mansfield QC was born in 1941 and educated at Highgate School and Keele University. Called to the Bar in 1967, he established Tooks Chambers, in 1984 and became Queen's Counsel in 1989. He has represented defendants in criminal trials, appeals, inquests and inquiries in some of the most controversial legal cases the country has seen, particularly where issues of Civil Liberty have arisen; he is President and Patron of numerous organisations including the Haldane, Amicus and Viva!, Professor and Honorary Fellow of many universities as well as being a regular contributor to public debates on human rights issues.
'Probably the biggest household name at the criminal Bar is Michael Mansfield, QC, a sure-fire role model for students wondering about a career in criminal (or civil rights) law.' The Times Online 'Brilliant...a sophisticated criminal practitioner who has delivered some of the most powerful pieces of advocacy witnessed in this country's courtrooms' Chambers Legal Directory 2009 'A fascinating and passionate record of the author's major cases in courts, inquests and public inquiries, whose context will be as familiar to the general reader as to the lawyer' Spectator 'I hugely admire him ... This book is not just a show-off catalogue of his greatest hits. It is a shaming, chilling list of injustices' A.N Wilson, Daily Mail