Humphrey Potts

{{Short description|English barrister and judge}}

{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2022}}

Sir Francis Humphrey Potts (18 August 1931 – 2 December 2012) was an English barrister and judge.{{cite news |title=Sir Humphrey Potts Obituary |url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/sir-humphrey-potts-rdt03vjp2r3 |access-date=23 May 2021 |publisher=News UK |date=9 January 2013}} He presided over several high-profile cases including the Jeffrey Archer perjury trial{{cite news |title=Archer jailed for four years |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/jul/19/archer.politics4 |access-date=23 May 2021 |publisher=Guardian Media Group |date=19 July 2001}} and the trial of Anthony Sawoniuk.{{cite news |title=Life for war criminal |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/307921.stm |access-date=23 May 2021 |publisher=BBC News |date=1 April 1999}} Sawoniuk, who died in 2005, is the only person to have been convicted under the War Crimes Act 1991{{cite news |title=Nazi war criminal Sawoniuk dies in jail |url=https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2005/nov/07/secondworldwar.world |access-date=23 May 2021 |publisher=Guardian Media Group |date=7 November 2005}}

Born in County Durham in 1931, he grew up in Penshaw, where his parents were farmers. He was educated at the Royal Grammar School, Newcastle where he was a contemporary and life-long friend of Peter Taylor{{cite news |last1=Amos |first1=Mike |title=Old old story |url=https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/opinion/columnists/mikeamos/mikeamos/10161981.old-old-story/ |access-date=23 May 2021 |publisher=Newsquest (Yorkshire and North East) Ltd. |date=15 January 2013}} and Geoffrey Bindman.{{cite web |title=Sir Humphrey Potts; Obituaries |url=https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Sir+Humphrey+Potts%3B+Obituaries.-a0316119339 |website=The Free Library |publisher=MGN |access-date=23 May 2021 |date=24 January 2013}}

He read law at St Catherine's College, Oxford and was called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1955.

His practice consisted of civil and criminal cases largely on the North Eastern Circuit. He took silk in 1971, became a Recorder and was appointed High Court judge, of the Queen's Bench Division in 1986.

Between 1988 and 1991 he served as Presiding Judge of the North East Circuit. He also sat on several judicial bodies including the Parole Board, the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board and the Mental Health Review Tribunal. In 1997 he was appointed the chairman of the newly created Special Immigration Appeals Commission.{{cite web |title=Who's Who |doi=10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U31243 |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.U31243 |access-date=23 May 2021}} In one of the final trials he presided over, in July 2001, Potts sentenced Jeffrey Archer to four years in prison for perjury.

He retired in 2001 and lived in Hownam in the Scottish Borders until his death, aged 81, in 2012{{cite news |title=Sir Humphrey Potts Obituary |url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/law-obituaries/9754038/Sir-Humphrey-Potts.html |access-date=23 May 2021 |publisher=Telegraph Media Group |date=18 December 2013}}