Real History and Mr Justice Gray

Posted Thursday, November 8, 2001

Alphabetical index (text) Index to the Traditional Enemies of Free Speech

Mr Justice Gray . . . denies being influenced by the media coverage.

London, Tuesday November 6, 2001

Gray Judge sees merit in trial without jury

By Frances Gibb
Legal Editor

THE judge who presided over the David Irving libel case has spoken about the "daunting" experience of a trial conducted under intense media scrutiny.

Mr Justice Gray, who ruled that David Irving was a pro-Nazi polemicist and a Holocaust denier after a lengthy libel trial last year, says it was an advantage not having a jury, and denies being influenced by the media coverage.

The judge, who breaks new ground in talking about a case on which he sat recently, says that a jury might have found the issues too complex.

"I don't want to sound like I'm being condescending, but for 12 amateurs to wrestle with a huge number of documents, focus through on the points that they were ultimately going to be asked to decide, and they were very numerous ... would, I think, have been beyond the powers of any 12 men and women."

Another advantage, he says, is that with trial by a judge reasons are given for the verdict.

"There are advantages in having a judge decide cases," he says on a [BBC] Radio 4 documentary to be broadcast on Thursday. "You get a reasoned judgment, which you don't with a jury. Juries don't give reasons for their decisions."