Widgery, John Passmore, Baron Widgery of South Molton (1911–1981)

English judge and Lord Chief Justice of England. He conducted an inquiry into the killing by British paratroops of 13 unarmed protesters during a civil-rights march in Londonderry, Northern Ireland on Sunday, 30 January 1972 (‘Bloody Sunday’). The Widgery Report exonerated the soldiers, claiming they had acted in self-defence. In 1997, the Irish government published a dossier of evidence calling into question the verdict of the Widgery Report. As a result, in January 1998, the British prime minister Tony Blair agreed to a fresh inquiry into the shootings.

Widgery was educated at Queen's College, Taunton. He qualified as a solicitor in 1933 and as a barrister (at Lincoln's Inn, London) in 1946. He was made a Queen's Counsel in 1958, a judge of the High Court of Justice (Queen's Bench Division) in 1961, and appointed to sit on the Court of Appeal in 1968.