Cherie quits as judge to focus on lucrative firm
As Cherie Blair sat to hear her husband Tony’s speech in his old stomping ground of sedgefield yesterday, it was like old times. But in the former prime ministerial consort’s professional career, it is very much all change.
Cherie, 60, is quitting her role as a judge. she has told friends it’s time for a ‘new guard’ and wants to see more young women coming through the ranks. Barrister Cherie, who is a QC, has been a Recorder — a part-time judge — in the County and Crown Court since 1999.
she told me last night: ‘It has been an enormous privilege to serve as a judge for nearly 20 years, but I’ve decided it’s time to focus on my work with Omnia strategy, the international law firm I founded, and my work as an independent arbitrator.’
But her decision to step down is sure to be tinged with regret. she long held a burning ambition to be promoted to High Court judge, but various mishaps blotted her copybook.
First, she drew questions over her judgment when she was forced into a humiliating apology after first denying, then admitting, she used convicted conman Peter Foster to help her buy two flats in Bristol at a knockdown price in 2002, while Tony was PM.
Then, in 2008, a former senior judge, Gerald Butler QC, called for her to resign over her tell-all book, speaking For
Myself, which included the revelation that she became pregnant with her son Leo at Balmoral in 1999 after forgetting to pack her ‘contraceptive equipment’.
And in 2010, she was criticised for sparing a thug jail while sitting as a judge after describing the Muslim as a ‘religious man’. A year later, she was in hot water again when Court of Appeal judge Lord Justice Pitchford described her decision to give cocaine smuggler Lee Williams a 12- month suspended sentence as ‘remarkable’ and ‘unduly lenient’.
She quit her human rights firm Matrix last year to concentrate on her international consultancy, Omnia Strategy, which advises governments and multinationals. The firm is reported to have signed a £500,000 deal to work with the Kazakhstan regime.