Adrian Davies
| Adrian Davies | |
|---|---|
| Born | 17 June 1962 |
| Nationality | British |
| Occupation | Barrister and former solicitor |
| Known for | Former Conservative Monday Club official; ex-chairman of the Freedom Party |
| Parents | Michael Davies and Maria Jozica Milos |
Adrian Davies (born 17 June 1962) is a barrister and a member of Lincoln's Inn, London. He was formerly a solicitor with the magic circle firm, Slaughter and May. He is the eldest son of the traditionalist Catholic writer, Michael Davies.
Contents |
[edit] Education
Davies was educated at Jesus College, Cambridge, where he took a first class honours degree in modern languages in 1985 and at the University of London where he took a LLM degree. Davies is fluent in French and Croatian.[1]
[edit] Legal career
After a year spent as a trainee at Ernst & Young, Davies qualified and practised litigation for six years as a solicitor at Slaughter and May. His specialist area was property litigation in which field he was known as a tenacious and enthusiastic litigator. Davies later retrained as a barrister and was called to the bar in 1998. He now practises at 3 Dr Johnson's Buildings.[1] His specialist areas include recoveries; real property, mortgages, landlord & tenant; wills, probate and trusts; civil actions against the Police, Customs & Excise et al.; and slander and libel.
During 2008 Davies successfully represented Shaun Brady, former general secretary of the rail union ASLEF, and Steven Trumm (a fellow union activist) in libel actions against Brady's successor as ASLEF leader Keith Norman.[2]
Another of Davies's best known clients was the Pakistani-born Manchester businessman Shami Ahmed.[3]
Probably Davies's best publicised client was the former Big Brother contestant Lisa Jeynes, who unsuccessfully sought up to £150,000 from the News of the World in 2007. Ms Jeynes contended that an article in the newspaper in 2003 had implied she was a transsexual. Mr Justice Eady in the High Court in London ruled that no reasonable reader would have drawn that inference from the newspaper's words, and therefore threw out Ms Jeynes' case.[4]
In a landmark family law case in 2006 he successfully represented Mrs Lillian Day in a dispute with her son over the beneficial ownership of a family home.[5]
He unsuccessfully represented the controversial British Holocaust denier David Irving at the Court of Appeal in 2001 after Irving had failed in a libel action against Deborah Lipstadt and Penguin Books. Irving had represented himself at the trial before Mr Justice Gray.[6]
In August 2007, Davies unsuccessfully represented two members of the British National Party in an appeal against a libel judgement given at first instance in favour of Searchlight magazine.[7] The court ruled that the so-called 'Reynolds defence' applied, which meant that Davies was prevented from arguing the claimants' case against the alleged defamation on the merits. Roberts v. Gable is regarded as a leading case on the reportage defence.[8]
He represented Simon Sheppard, who was the first person in the UK to be convicted of inciting racial hatred on the internet, and in January 2010 succeeded in convincing the Court of Appeal to reduce Sheppard's sentence.[9]
[edit] Brompton Road campaign
In 2009 Adrian Davies launched a campaign[10] to reopen Brompton Road station, on the Piccadilly Line of the London Underground. Brompton Road closed in 1934. Davies operates a website[11] to promote the campaign, and has given several interviews on the issue including a BBC feature.[12]
[edit] Death of brother Owen Davies
The unexpected death from a coronary illness of one of his brothers, Owen, a patent agent with Renault S.A., and its bizarre aftermath, extensively reported in the Stratford Herald, have led to complicated litigation in the Belgian and English courts.[13]
An attempt by Adrian Davies to launch parallel proceedings in Belgium without notifying the Belgian Court of English proceedings was blocked by a landmark anti-suit injunction granted by Miss Sarah Asplin QC on 20 May 2011 [9], where she stated "Given that the present defendants had submitted to the hearing of that issue and allowed costs to be incurred , in my judgement such conduct is vexatious and oppressive". [14]
The judgement to the preliminary issue to determine the domicile of Owen Davies was handed down on 12 July 2011 by Mr Charles Hollander QC [10] and ruled against Adrian Davies and his associate Mark Simeon Jones (both barristers of 3 Doctor Johnson's Buildings, London). The Judge determined that "Owen never lost his domicile of origin, and remained domiciled in England" and not domiciled in Belgium as claimed by Adrian Davies and family, and is further reported in the Stratford Herald on 14 July 2011.
A costs hearing for the domicile case was held on 12 September 2011, and Mr Davies and family was ordered by Mr Charles Hollander QC to pay interim costs of £50000, with the final amount to be determined by a costs judge at a subsequent hearing.
On 18 November 2011 The Honourable Lord Justice Lewison (Kim Lewison) at The Court of Appeal refused permission to appeal on three counts for the anti-suit injunction granted on 20 May 2011, for the preliminary hearing granted on 12 July 2011, and for the stay of costs order of 12 September 2011 which was requested by Davies. A further hearing is due early in 2012 to prove the validity of the will. [15]
[edit] Politics
Davies was previously an executive council member of the Conservative Monday Club, a former executive committee member of Tory Action and secretary of the London Swinton Circle. He is also a co-founder of the Bloomsbury Forum with Jonathan Bowden.
He addressed a fringe meeting of the Conservative Democratic Alliance at the Conservative Party Conference in October 2002.
Adrian Davies was chairman of the now-defunct United Kingdom Freedom Party (which is not connected to the British Freedom Party). He was the Freedom Party's sole candidate in the 2005 general election, contesting South Staffordshire which, owing to the death of a candidate, was postponed from May 5 to June 23. His manifesto embraced, inter alia, opposition to immigration (using the slogan "Enoch Powell was right!"), the European Union and the euro and favoured a protectionist economic stance.[16] Davies polled 473 votes, 1.7% of all those cast.
On 23rd May 2011 Davies and his associate Raymond Heath (in the past a member of the short-lived “populist” National Party of the United Kingdom then of the Vauxhall Conservative Association) registered another new political party with the Electoral Commission numbered PP 1765 and called the British Democratic Party [17]. The new party seems to be dormant, as confirmed by Davies himself on the British Democracy Forum where he once regularly posted under the nom de plume "Advocatus Diaboli". [18]: "I shan't be returning to the fray as chairman of any post-Gri££in nationalist party, been there, done that! Others will have to take up that mantle, though I am happy to offer advice and financial support if indeed a worthwhile new party, be that the BDP or another, eventually takes off."[19]
[edit] Elections contested
| Date of election | Constituency | Party | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | South Staffordshire | UK Freedom Party | 473 | 1.7[20] |
[edit] References
- ^ a b Curriculum Vitae of Adrian Davies
- ^ [1]
- ^ [2]
- ^ "BB Lisa's libel claim thrown out". BBC News. 25 April 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/6592679.stm.
- ^ [3]
- ^ "Irving loses Holocaust denial appeal". The Guardian (London). 20 July 2001. http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/jul/20/irving.books.
- ^ "Reynolds defence puts BNP in its place", The Lawyer, June 2006
- ^ "Roberts & Anor v Gable & Ors", 12 July 2007
- ^ "R v. Sheppard & Anor", 29 January 2010
- ^ [4]
- ^ [5]
- ^ Prest, Harriet (4 September 2009). "Resurrecting London's ghost stations". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/london/hi/people_and_places/newsid_8236000/8236894.stm.
- ^ [6] "Secret funeral claim goes to High Court", "Stratford Herald", 9 December 2010]
- ^ http://www.hardwicke.co.uk/news/jurisdiction-probate-and-anti-suit-relief/
- ^ http://www.wrighthassall.co.uk/services/morris_v_davies_and_4_others_2011_ewhc_1773ch.aspx
- ^ Adrian Davies, election leaflets, 2005
- ^ [7]
- ^ [8]
- ^ http://www.democracyforum.co.uk/bnp/94646-another-new-nationalist-party-2.html
- ^ "Result: Staffordshire South". BBC News. 23 May 2005. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/vote2005/html/535.stm. Retrieved 2007-02-27.
[edit] Publications
- Wilson - The Political Soldier in Standardbearers - British Roots of the New Right, (editor with Jonathan Bowden and Eddy Butler, Bloomsbury Forum publication, Beckenham, Kent, April 1999 ISBN 0-9537309-0-5
- Bonar Law in Standardbearers - British Roots of the New Right, (editor with Jonathan Bowden and Eddy Butler, Bloomsbury Forum publication, Beckenham, Kent, April 1999 ISBN 0-9537309-0-5
- Chamberlain The greatest Prime Minister we never had in Standardbearers - British Roots of the New Right, (editor with Jonathan Bowden and Eddy Butler, Bloomsbury Forum publication, Beckenham, Kent, April 1999 ISBN 0-9537309-0-5
- The ‘extreme Right’ why it failed - a review by Adrian Davies of Many Shades of Black by John Bean, Hedgerow Publishing (Aug 1999) ISBN 1-85845-256-2
[edit] External links
- Reports on some of Adrian Davies's cases
- Adrian Davies's website about Brompton Road station
- Adrian Davies talks about the current state of the Conservatives under their new leader, David Cameron Part 1
- Adrian Davies talks about the current state of the Conservatives under their new leader, David Cameron Part 2
- Adrian Davies talks about the current state of the Conservatives under their new leader, David Cameron Part 3
