Sir Donald Farquharson, PC

Donald Farquharson served as Lord Chief Justice of Appeal in England for eight years after being an outstanding criminal barrister. He prosecuted in the celebrated trial of Cynthia Payne (the “Streatham madam”) in 1980 for running a house of ill-repute and thereby exposing some very odd goings-on in south London.

In 1997, Farquharson sat in judgment in the case against the jockey Lester Piggott, who had avoided paying tax by having much of his winnings secreted in numbered accounts in tax havens around the world. Farquharson, in his summing up, commented that the case involved “a massive evasion of corporation and income tax over a period of more than ten years”.

Donald Henry Farquharson was the younger son of a Dumfries civil engineer whose family originated from Aberdeenshire. His father died when Farquharson was still an infant and his mother decided to move south to be near her family in east London. Farquharson, however, was never, to loose his love of Scotland or his interest in the country’s affairs.

He was educated at the Royal Commercial Travellers School in London and then went up to Keble College, Oxford, to read law. He was called to the Bar in 1952 and although a touch retiring in private life, in court Farquharson had an air of conviction and authority.

Much of his work concentrated on the prosecution of criminals – often representing the Metropolitan Police in London. He took Silk in 1972 and served as a Recorder of the Crown Court from 1972 until 1981. As an advocate Farquharson’s best known case was undoubtedly the Cynthia Payne case in 1980.

In his matter-of-fact manner and down-to-earth delivery, Farquharson told the court how Payne had entertained men of “the highest calibre” – including a peer, an Irish MP, barristers, solicitors and “several vicars” – in Streatham, south London.

What captured the public’s imagination was that Madam Cyn (as the tabloids dubbed her) insisted she ran a Luncheon Vouchers scheme which allowed her clients to eat and drink, watch live sex shows and films and have sex with one of the girls. They could settle the bill by paying with Luncheon Vouchers – so cash seldom changed hands.

But it was the business-like manner in which Farquharson prosecuted that gained him admiration. He never resorted to cheap asides or got involved in snide side issues but concentrated on the facts. Payne was sentenced to 18 months’ imprisonment, which was later reduced.

Payne came out of prison and was the subject of books and became something of a media personality: indeed she played to packed houses at the Edinburgh Fringe in 1992. Two films were made about her: Personal Services, starring Julie Walters and Wish You Were Here, which concentrated on her teenage years.

In 1989, Farquharson was appointed a Lord Justice of Appeal, where he displayed the same methodical interpretation of the law that he had shown as a QC. He was always courteous to nervous witnesses and willing to explain lucidly legal terms to the jury. His summings-up were invariably clear and devoid of legal jargon.

In 1987, Farquharson was the centre of some controversy when he jailed at Ipswich Crown Court former champion jockey Piggott after he had admitted a £3 million tax fraud. Piggott had not been very prudent in the management of his financial affairs and had paid some back taxes, it was alleged, with money from an unknown Swiss bank account. Farquharson had remarked during the trial that Piggott even misled his own accountants “until the matter was forced out of you last year”.

Many thought the three-year jail sentence unduly harsh, but Farquharson explained that he could not “pass over” the scale of Piggott’s tax evasion “without giving an invitation to others tempted to cheat”.

During his time in the Court of Appeal, Farquharson sat on such notable cases as the quashing of the convictions of the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six and a similar reappraisal of the convictions of the three men tried for the murder of PC Keith Blakelock during the Broadwater Farm riots in 1985.

In 1992, Farquharson was appointed to chair the new Criminal Justice Consultative Council, but his career was cut short with the diagnosis of Parkinson’s Disease in 1995 and he took early retirement.

Farquharson was knighted in 1981, made a member of the Privy Council in 1989 and acted as a Deputy Lieutenant of Essex.

Sir Donald Farquharson married Mary Simpson in 1960. She died in 2008 having devotedly nursed him during his long illness. They had a daughter, who died soon after birth, and three sons.

ALASDAIR STEVEN