Jeremy Cooke

Sir Jeremy Cooke
Royal coat of arms of the United Kingdom
Justice of the High Court
In office
2001–2016
Personal details
Born
Jeremy Lionel Cooke

(1949-04-28) 28 April 1949 (age 75)
NationalityEnglish
Alma materSt Edmund Hall, Oxford
OccupationJudge

Sir Jeremy Lionel Cooke (born 28 April 1949), styled The Hon. Mr Justice Cooke, is a former judge in the Queen's Bench in the High Court starting from 2001 and was presiding judge for the South Eastern Circuit from 2007 to 2011, and judge in charge of the Commercial Court from 2012 to his retirement in 2016.

Career

Educated at Whitgift School in Croydon and St Edmund Hall, Oxford,[1] he became a solicitor in 1973 and was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1976.

He became a QC in 1990, working at 7 King's Bench Walk, where he was noted as a leading "commercial silk" by The Lawyer, who said he specialised in "energy, insurance and reinsurance, professional negligence and shipping and maritime law." He became head of chambers in May 2000, replacing Stephen Tomlinson, who left and became a high court judge. Cooke himself became a judge in 2001, being replaced by Julian Flaux QC and Gavin Kealey QC as head of chambers.[2][3][4] He acted as an assistant recorder 1994-8 then as a recorder 1998–2001.

High Court

Cooke was knighted in 2001, and that October he became a High Court judge, Queen's Bench Division, Commercial. With Mr Justice Bean, he became a presiding judge over the South Eastern Circuit on 1 January 2007.[5] He was succeeded by Mr Justice Sweeney on 1 January 2012.[6] Among the cases he has presided over as judge were the 2007 royal blackmail plot,[7] the trial of Armel Gnango for the murder of Magda Pniewska,[citation needed] the trial of Roshonara Choudhry for stabbing Stephen Timms MP[8] and the 2011 Pakistan cricket spot-fixing scandal.[9]

Between 2013 and 2016, he presided over the case of R v Tom Hayes, which saw him hand the largest ever sentence for white collar crime in the UK. His last case was about the seizure of Hayes's assets, in which he ordered the payment of £878,806. He then retired in 2016.[10]

He has also served as a judge for Singapore's International Commercial Court and the Dubai International Financial Centre Court.[11][12]

Personal life

He was a member of Harlequin F.C. from 1970 to 1975. He has been vice-chairman of LICC Ltd since 1999 and was vice-president of the Lawyers' Christian Fellowship from 2003–2010.

See also


References

  1. ^ http://www.sjberwin.com/Contents/Publications/pdf/100/140306070249.pdf[permanent dead link‍]
  2. ^ "Quality silks are hard to find". The Lawyer. 20 May 1997. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  3. ^ "Digests". The Lawyer. 17 April 2000. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  4. ^ "Flaux & Kealey to head 7 kbw". Legal Week. 27 September 2001. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  5. ^ "Leveson J lands Lord Justice of Appeal post". The Lawyer. 24 July 2006. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  6. ^ "On the move". The Lawyer. 4 July 2011. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  7. ^ May, Laura (20 March 2008). "Judge limits access to royal blackmail tape". Press & Journal. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  8. ^ "Woman gets 15 years for UK lawmaker stabbing". Associated Press. 3 November 2010. Archived from the original on 10 April 2016. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  9. ^ Scott, Matt (2 November 2011). "Judge questions Mohammad Amir's plea that spot-fixing role was one-off". The Guardian. Retrieved 21 December 2011.
  10. ^ Kirton, Hayley. "Judge orders Tom Hayes to pay £878,806". cityam.com. Retrieved 23 March 2016.
  11. ^ "Judges". Default. Retrieved 3 May 2024.
  12. ^ "Sir Jeremy Cooke". the commercial court of england & wales. Retrieved 3 May 2024.