Subjects:

Legal History, General Interest, Wildy, Simmonds and Hill

Assizes, Quarter Sessions and the Oxford Circuit. Most barristers (and even some solicitors) practising in criminal work will probably have heard, however faintly, of the first two, without knowing what they were. But the Oxford Circuit has almost completely disappeared from the profession’s memory. Yet all three were ancient and venerable parts of the (mainly criminal) justice system, and were in full force and operation until 1st January 1972, only half a modern lifetime ago.

This book attempts to describe the pre-1972 system, and in particular the closing years of the Oxford Circuit’s independent existence, its peremptory abolition and some of the Circuit characters, in what was a more colourful era than the present.

The author was in practice on the London end of the Oxford Circuit from 1960 onwards. He has been married for more than forty years to Anna Worrall QC, a Northern Circuiteer and Middle Temple Bencher. They live in Camden Town and Suffolk.