19 Facts About Widgery Tribunal

Widgery Tribunal is principally noted for presiding over the Widgery Tribunal on the events of Bloody Sunday.

Widgery Tribunal came from a North Devon family which had been living in South Molton for many generations.

Widgery Tribunal's father, Samuel Widgery, was a house furnisher; his mother Bertha Elizabeth, nee Passmore, was Samuel's second wife, and served as a magistrate.

Widgery Tribunal attended Queen's College, Taunton, where he became head prefect.

Widgery Tribunal was admitted as a solicitor in 1933 after serving as an articled clerk, but instead of going into practice, he joined Gibson and Welldon, a well-known firm of law tutors.

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Widgery Tribunal was an effective lecturer in the years leading up to World War II while he was commissioned into the Royal Engineers in 1938, having joined as a sapper.

Widgery Tribunal gathered a reputation for being a fast talker, and eventually came to specialise in disputes over rating and town planning, where his methodical approach and self-control were useful attributes.

Widgery Tribunal became a High Court judge in 1961, receiving the customary knighthood.

Widgery Tribunal received promotion to the Court of Appeal in 1968, but had barely got used to his new position when Lord Parker of Waddington announced his retirement.

Shortly after assuming office, Widgery Tribunal was handed the politically sensitive job of conducting an inquiry into the events of 30 January 1972 in Derry, where soldiers from Parachute Regiment had shot and killed 13 civil rights marchers, an event commonly referred to as Bloody Sunday .

Widgery Tribunal produced a report, published in April 1972 that took the side of the soldiers.

Widgery Tribunal Report was accepted by the British government but met with a mixed reception in Northern Ireland; loyalists supported the report but Irish republicans, particularly those from the Bogside and Creggan areas, criticised Widgery Tribunal's findings.

In January 1998, on the eve of the 26th anniversary of Bloody Sunday, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced a new inquiry, criticising the rushed process in which Widgery Tribunal failed to take evidence from those wounded on Bloody Sunday and did not personally read eyewitness accounts.

Widgery Tribunal ruled in the case R v Commissioner of Metropolitan Police, ex parte Blackburn on the duty of the Crown to prosecute.

Widgery Tribunal ruled on the Crossman diaries case when the government attempted to suppress the publication on the grounds of confidentiality.

Widgery Tribunal made it clear during the case that he felt Crossman had "broken the rules, " but ultimately refused to grant an injunction preventing publication.

In criminal cases, Widgery Tribunal became concerned by an increasing number of cases resting on weak identification evidence.

In 1948, Widgery Tribunal married Ann, daughter of William Edwin Kermode, of Peel, Isle of Wight.

Widgery Tribunal resisted attempts to get him to resign until the last moment, in 1980.