Desert Island Discs: Archive 2005-2010 - Lord Woolf

Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the former Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales Lord Woolf. Throughout his career, he has been at the forefront of shaping our justice system. Following the Strangeways riots in 1990 he issued far-reaching reports on penal reform and his part in authorizing the release of James Bulger's killers attracted huge attention. As Master of the Rolls he made an historic judgement allowing Diane Blood to use her dead husband's sperm to have a child.

Lord Woolf's appetite to see justice done was sharpened as a wartime school boy and the only Jew at Fettes College in Edinburgh - he developed an early antipathy towards any perceived unfairness. His school master's contention that being a barrister wasn't the profession for a boy with a stutter only made him more determined to succeed.

[Taken from the original programme material for this archive edition of Desert Island Discs]

Favourite track: The Prisoner's Chorus from Fidelio by Ludwig van Beethoven
Book: The Koran
Luxury: A happy photograph of the whole family including the latest grandchildren.

Published on Sunday, 1st June 2008.

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