Michael Brooke(1942-2014)

Born in London, his father Reginald was a wartime BBC radio announcer under the name Michael Brooke. His mother took the stage name Beryl Riggs and was noted for her appearances in Just William productions. Bilingual, he was educated at the Lycée Francais in London and read Law at Edinburgh University and was called to the bar in November 1968. He became a distinguished and well-regarded Barrister, and later Judge. His greatest achievement, in the late Eighties and early Nineties, was obtaining compensation from the National Health Service for over 1000 hemophiliacs who had been treated with blood contaminated with HIV, and later for those infected with Hepatitis C. He retired in 2010. In 1972 he married Sophie Vautier and had three sons: Nicholas, Anthony and Benjamin. The couple divorced in 1985 and he later married Mireille Colahan. He was a passionate about cycling, trains and all things French. The French Government awarded him the Legion d'Honneur in 2012 for setting up the Paris-London Bar Exchange where lawyers conducted mock trials in a foreign tongue.