Former head of family courts kills himself after dementia diagnosis

Sir Nicholas Wall, the former head of the family courts in England and Wales, who retired due to ill health, has taken his own life. He had been diagnosed with dementia, his family revealed.

In a highly unusual death notice due to be published in the Guardian on Friday, his family publicly acknowledged the manner of his death. He died last Friday, aged 71, at a care home in Kent.

Wall was a distinguished and compassionate judge whose career as president of the family division was brought to an end by illness in December 2012 after he had been in charge for two years.

The death notice records that he “died by his own hand on 17th February 2017 aged 71”. He is survived by his wife, Margaret, his children, Imogen, Emma, Rosalind and Simon, and grandsons, Joshua and Arthur.

The notice adds: “After years of suffering, he was recently diagnosed with a rare dementia of the fronto-temporal lobe.”

The notice includes the opening of a poem, Tithonus by Tennyson, which begins:
“The woods decay, the woods decay and fall,
The vapours weep their burthen to the ground,
Man comes and tills the field and lies beneath,
And after many a summer dies the swan.”

In legend, Tithonus was a Trojan granted immortality but not eternal youth, who realised he no longer wished to live forever. Wall’s family asked for any donations to go to the National Hospital for Neurology & Neurosurgery.

Sir James Munby, who succeeded Wall as president of the family division, paid tribute to his work. “On and off the bench and to the wide admiration of those who practise in family law, Sir Nicholas often spoke with passion, and in plain language, about the importance of family life, the good practice of family law, and the proper administration and resourcing of family justice.

“He was appropriately outspoken about the plight of children caught up in the midst of parental conflict. He expressed his deep concern again and again about the impact of domestic abuse on children and on family life. Sir Nicholas’s life was one of very great achievement and he has left us a formidable and enduring legacy.”

The Family Law Bar Association (FLBA) described him as “a compassionate judge who thought and cared deeply about the outcome of his cases”.

In his time in the family division, Wall championed many progressive causes, including the rights of unmarried couples and the introduction of no-fault divorces, and supported increased transparency for courts.

Nicholas Cusworth QC, chair of the FLBA, said, when Wall retired in 2012: “Sir Nicholas Wall has been the most distinguished family lawyer of his generation. He was equally at home with cases involving money and children at the bar, a very rare commodity. As a judge, he was brave in asserting what he saw as the right way, especially where the interests of children were concerned. He was trusted to stand up for the fair administration of family justice against the repeated attempts at cost cutting by successive governments.”

Wall, who qualified as a barrister in 1969, became a judge in 1990. He worked in the employment appeal tribunal, the administrative court and the court of appeal, as well as the family division.

Source: The Guardian