Respected judge used to high profile cases

LORD Hutton cut his teeth in Northern Ireland during the height of the Troubles.

Today, as one of Britain’s most senior judges, he will head the judicial inquiry into the events leading up to the death of Dr David Kelly.

Lord Hutton is one of 12 judges in Britain’s highest court, the House of Lords.

James Hutton came to the Lords in 1997 after a nine-year spell as Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland.

Born in Belfast, he was educated in a traditional boys’ boarding school in Shrewsbury, and then Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a first in jurisprudence.

The final spell of his studies was at Queen’s University, Belfast, before he was called to the Northern Ireland Bar in 1954.

Hutton was made junior counsel to the province’s attorney-general in 1969 when the Troubles erupted and at one time during his legal career in Northern Ireland it was thought he was a top target for the IRA.

His distinguished career in Northern Ireland included a QC (Northern Ireland) in 1970 and a senior Crown Counsel from 1973 to 1979.

He was called to the English bar in 1972 and knighted in 1988.

In 1978 he was a member of the British defence team in the European Court of Human Rights when Britain was found guilty of ill-treating internees in 1971.

One of his most high profile cases was that of controversial Chilean

General Augusto Pinochet.

The 72-year-old Baron Hutton of Bresagh in the County of Down is married with two daughters, and sits as a cross-bencher in the Lords.