Kentish Gazette Canterbury & District
Judge bids farewell to city court
Canterbury’s top judge Adele Williams bade farewell to colleagues and staff yesterday (Wednesday) after finishing her eight-year term on the bench.
She will now do a spell at the High Court in London before heading to Maidstone Crown Court, where she will preside over serious cases including murder.
After being called to the bar 44 years ago, she married Andrew Patience in 1975, who then became resident judge at Maidstone and has since retired.
The mother of two joined the Kent Bar Mess, prosecuting and defending cases at both crown courts before being made a circuit judge 16 years ago.
Since then, she has tried many murder cases at Canterbury, including June’s prosecution of the three Knight brothers, who smoked psychoactive substances before killing a woman with wrestling moves and were jailed for life.
She also oversaw the case of shop workers Mohammed Islam, 28, and Murshed Miah, 38, who were convicted of murdering retired machinist Harjit Chaggar following an eight-week trial and more than 21 hours of deliberations in 2014.
Top QC Oliver Saxby was one of the lawyers who paid tribute to her work at Canterbury.
He said: “What has really characterised her work has been her instinctive, sound judgement, her great dynamism and efficiency, and a sense of cooperation and camaraderie without which the whole process does not work.”