Feature: '˜We're utterly independent, highly experienced and incorruptible'

Sheffield's most senior civil judge, Graham Robinson, speaks about his life, career and the future of his profession in a testing time for the judiciary
Judge Graham Robinson. Picture: Marie Caley NSST Robinson MC 3Judge Graham Robinson. Picture: Marie Caley NSST Robinson MC 3
Judge Graham Robinson. Picture: Marie Caley NSST Robinson MC 3

In the judges’ lounge at the Sheffield law courts, a long dining table is set for lunch – glasses, crockery, and napkins awaiting the city’s foremost legal minds.

But those glasses won’t be filled with a fine vintage come 1pm.

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The myth of justices swilling port before hearing an afternoon’s evidence is one of several in dire need of puncturing, believes Judge Graham Robinson.

“The public speak of judges living in ivory towers – we don’t,” says Sheffield’s most senior civil judge.

“Very often if a judge asks a question in a criminal trial – the classic one being ‘Who are The Beatles?’ – it’s because the judge isn’t confident that all members of the jury have understood.”

It’s a testing time for the judiciary. The Daily Mail’s front page in November declaring three judges behind the High Court ruling over Brexit ‘enemies of the people’ didn’t escape Judge Robinson’s notice – and he’s prepared to defend his profession to the hilt.

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“We are utterly independent, utterly incorruptible and, putting modesty aside, pretty well-qualified. We’re highly experienced and extremely well-trained by the Judicial College.

“I think we’re held rightly in pretty high regard. We certainly deserve to be.”

However, Judge Robinson only spends a few weeks a year overseeing jurors. As Sheffield’s designated civil judge, he is nominally in charge of non-criminal justice throughout South Yorkshire, hearing ‘high-value’ cases that have not reached a settlement, including medical negligence lawsuits and claims after horrific injuries such as workplace accidents and road crashes.

“Most people identify with the criminal courts – everybody calls it the Crown Court in Sheffield, but actually it’s the Combined Court Centre,” says Judge Robinson, who also sits in London at the Royal Courts of Justice for three weeks a year as a deputy high court judge.

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His chambers are stacked with case files, dense legal textbooks and, on his desk last week, two huge boxes of paperwork – required as he’s in the middle of working on, in his words, ‘a meaty judgment’.

“That was a big case. That was heard over 11 days, plus submissions. Obviously an important case deserves time to do properly.”

Rather than being overwhelmed by the task, he finds it ‘enjoyable’.

“This isn’t an egotistical thing, but I’m in complete control.

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“The crown court judge does very important work under difficult circumstances but the ultimate decision is the jury’s. With me the ultimate decision is mine. With privilege comes great responsibility.”

As well as making findings of fact and interpreting the law, Judge Robinson often has to calculate costs and the extent of any damages payable.

“I see really big cases, what lawyers generally call the catastrophic cases, which require 24-hour care for life. They go for big money, typically because for a number of years we’ve been able to make periodic payment orders in respect of the costs of care – so a typical big catastrophic case will attract an award of £3 million up front and between £100,000 and £200,000 a year, index-linked.”

He is cautious about commenting on any perceived increase in compensation claims, but adds: “There’s potentially an element of people being more aware of the remedies that are available to them.”

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Judge Robinson was born in Sunderland, where two of his grandparents worked for the National Coal Board, as did both of his parents to start with.

But then his father qualified as an accountant and his family moved near to Southampton when he was a young child.

He attended state schools throughout, then studied law at Hull University.

His plan was to become an accountant too eventually – but the future judge was ‘fatally attracted to law’.

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“It was just utterly fascinating. It was fast-moving, it changed like economics did, but I found I had an ability to argue persuasively orally.

And so I decided the bar was for me and I was lucky enough to be able to make it.”

The move to Sheffield came in 1982, and Judge Robinson stayed with the same set of chambers – Paradise Chambers, now part of the St John’s Buildings group – throughout his career as a barrister.

Becoming a judge was the ‘logical next step’. He became a part-time assistant recorder in the late 1990s, then a recorder, and was appointed full-time to the judiciary in 2005.

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He took on more civil work because it ‘made sense to channel that area of expertise’, and when Judge Robert Moore QC retires next year, 58-year-old Judge Robinson will be the third longest-serving judge at the courts.

Father to a 22-year-old daughter and 19-year-old son – who ‘absolutely haven’t gone into law’, he laughs – Judge Robinson lives close to Sheffield city centre and is married to his second wife, who’s also in the legal profession, Leeds District Judge Siobhan Kelly.

Outside of legal matters, skiing and walks in the Peak District occupy his time.

The future will probably bring more ‘paperless’ trials through digitisation, and cases dealt with online, he believes.

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“There will always be a place for old-time judges like me, but dispute resolution needn’t be restricted to the systems we operate in at the moment.”

Judges’ weight of responsibility

Judge Graham Robinson said overseeing a trial ‘requires 100 per cent concentration, 100 per cent of the time’.

“When you’re a judge you do feel the weight of responsibility on your shoulders.”

He first sat as a criminal judge in a case about a robbery at a Bradford petrol station. “It was very strange stepping out as a judge for first time. I didn’t realise what a good view the judge has of everything in the courtroom.”

Criminal judges are helped by sentencing guidelines, and civil judges by tables of figures for the assessment of damages.

“There’s got to be some sort of internal consistency.”