John Mathew QC
Criminal barrister
WHILE not a household name, John Mathew QC was a giant of law involved in some of history’s most famous cases.
The criminal barrister was behind the prosecution of four members of Britain’s first urban guerilla group, the Angry Brigade.
The far-left militants carried out several bombings in the early 1970s with their targets including the homes of Conservative MPs.
His roll-call also included prosecuting the Kray twins on extortion charges at the Old Bailey in 1965.
But he was just as successful on the other side, defending Jeremy Thorpe’s close friend David Holmes in the 1979 Thorpe affair murder trial.
His accomplishments extended beyond criminal trials. He represented the Evening Standard in the so-called “Spycatcher trials” as Margaret Thatcher’s government tried to block the publication of details about supposed double-crossings in MI5 officer Peter Wright’s book.
However, a young Jonathan Aitken evaded him in 1971. Mathew tried to prosecute him under the Official Secrets Act for leaking information about the government’s supply of arms to Nigeria to the Daily Telegraph.
Atiken was acquitted along with four other defendants.
Mathew was born into a legal dynasty in Kensington, west London.
His father was Sir Theobald Mathew KBE MC, a prominent barrister.
Despite an initial reluctance to study law, he was called to the bar by Lincoln’s Inn in 1949.
He married Jane Lagden, who died in 2016, and is survived by their two children.