James Turner KC, who has died aged 72, was a titan of the bar. In an increasingly specialised legal world, he had a uniquely broad practice for a family barrister: financial remedies, child abduction, divorce, crime, judicial review, medical disciplinary work and administrative law.

He appeared in over 200 reported cases, including the most seminal in financial remedies: the House of Lords’ decisions in White v White [2001] 1 AC 596 and Miller; McFarlane [2006] 2 AC 618, and the Court of Appeal’s decision in Imerman v Tchenguiz [2011] Fam 116. A list of James’s cases up to 2022 can be found here. It is a mark of his extraordinary, Stakhanovite work ethic that his illness did not hold him back. He continued to work until the very end. One of his last cases, XY v XX [2024] EWFC 387 (B), was heard on 4 November 2024 and judgment was published on 16 January 2025, days before his untimely death.

James Turner was born on 23 November 1952, the son of Peggy and James Gordon Melville Turner GC. During the War, Mr Turner Sr had been awarded the George Cross for his bravery as a merchant shipman on the Manaar: he had been ordered to leave the sinking ship but refused until two wounded crewmates got out. In a later naval engagement, he lost a leg and was captured, spending several years in a German prisoner of war camp. Tragically, on 5 November 1967, days before James’ 15th birthday, his father was killed in the Hither Green train crash along with 48 other passengers. James’s first experience of the law was accompanying his widowed mother to the Temple where counsel advised in relation to settlement of the fatal accident claim. He was fascinated by how the legal system worked. Decades later, he approached Mr Justice Penry-Davey at an Inner Temple Benchers dinner, who had acted for his mother as junior counsel: ‘It’s your fault I got into law’.

After attending a secondary modern school in Bexhill, James was offered a place through clearing to read law at the University of Hull. He was immensely proud of the 4 years he spent there, alongside several illustrious legal alumni: ‘two silks, two law professors, two judges. Lady Justice Eleanor King was a poster-girl … a few years after us’. James served on a student and staff committee where he met Philip Larkin, then the university librarian, and booked several of the leading rock bands of the time to play at the university. From the photographic evidence (see below), James might have been mistaken for one of the booked acts (hints of Bryan Ferry from Roxy Music) who had gamely agreed to pose with the assembled hairies of the student union.

Following his graduation James obtained a scholarship from Inner Temple and was called to the bar in 1976. At that time, there was no formal process of application for pupillage. Without any personal connections to the bar, he was advised by his Inn to approach Anthony Hacking, then a successful senior junior in the common law set at 1 King’s Bench Walk, Temple. The two met and evidently hit it off: after 20 minutes, arrangements were made to meet on a train to Lewes Crown Court for what would be the start of James’s pupillage and a connection with 1 KBW which lasted almost 50 years. The past, as they say, is a foreign country: they really did do things differently then.

In 1977 James was offered tenancy at 1 KBW and joined a chambers of 17 mainly Oxbridge-educated male barristers and no women (how things change). He later reflected, in an excellent 2021 interview for the Family Law Bar Association’s ‘Family Affairs’, ‘even as someone educated at a State school and a non-Oxbridge university, I didn’t experience any real problems getting a pupillage or a tenancy – it’s far far more difficult for those who want to come to the Bar these days’.

At 1 KBW in the 1980s and 1990s, James was, by his own description, a ‘jack of all trades’. ‘It was a great training: things weren’t as specialised in those days; we had to keep our fingers on the pulse of everything and there was quite a bit of cross-fertilisation between different areas … it was enormous fun, and there was lots of reasonably well paid Legal Aid work’. James became known for his detailed knowledge of the technical elements of criminal law. In one case, his leader Heather Hallett QC (as she then was) coined an affectionate nickname that stuck: ‘Technical Turner’.

His growing reputation in crime led to an invitation to be a contributing editor of Archbold (1992–2018). Anyone who has edited a legal textbook will recognise James’s description of what this incurred: ‘a complete nightmare [which] took over my life’. As junior counsel, James was appointed to the Treasury Panel, acting in Government work in fields such as judicial review, extradition and quasi-criminal civil actions, in cases involving such high profile parties as Silvio Berlusconi, Asif Ali Zardari (the husband of Benazir Bhutto) and General Pinochet.

At 20 years call, James took silk in 1998, alongside Sir Andrew McFarlane (as he became) in what, with hindsight, might be described as a pretty good year for chambers.

In silk, James maintained his broad practice in crime, family and other areas of law. One of the many remarkable things about his career is how he managed to fit in his appearance before the House of Lords in Miller; McFarlane during a lengthy bonded warehouse fraud trial at Kingston Crown Court where he acted for one of the defendants. ‘As a result of Miller; McFarlane … I was Lawyer of the Week in the Times and the usher in the criminal case told me the jury had that part of the Times pinned up on a notice board in their retiring room’.

After 10 years in silk, James concentrated on family law, appearing in such landmark cases as Miller-Smith, Judge v Judge, Owens v Owens, Gohil, Goyal and Waggott. He appeared in the House of Lords or Supreme Court six times in child abduction cases alone: the complete tally of his appearances in the highest court is unknown. In 2016 James was awarded Family Law QC of the Year; if anything, an overdue honour.

I first came across James in the mid-1990s, when I was a pupil at 1 KBW, and he was already an established star at the bar. My recollections from the time: (1) ‘Turner’ was incredibly busy; (2) he seemed to be in constant physical motion, with his pupil having to hurry to catch up (regrettably I was never his pupil); (3) his room in chambers was dark and so full of files it resembled the closing scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark; and (4) he was a strikingly handsome man at the top of his profession, instructed by the best solicitors, appearing in the highest courts, in the most important cases. In a word, Turner was glamorous in a way that barristers generally are not.

It wasn’t until several years later, when I joined 1 KBW as a tenant that I found out how generous James was with his time, supportive of juniors, kind, personable, with an unrivalled store of funny legal stories and – remarkably for a man of such talent – not a hint of arrogance. He was absolutely loyal to chambers, and a reliable attender of chambers events and lunches. He was a ‘1 KBW man’ through and through.

James was a brilliant advocate who embodied the professional duty to act fearlessly for his clients. At times, admittedly, he could be tenacious to the point of obstinacy. He was unable to let an ungrammatical document or tweet go by uncorrected. His laser focus on detail could at time draw the occasional muffled groan, such as his interpretation of clauses of the 1 KBW constitution during chambers meetings. However, no one is completely without fault and, as anyone who has appeared against him will know, James was always professional, courteous and civil. He did not descend to robing room tactics.

While James Turner inhabited the law like few people I have ever met and had an unrivalled breadth of knowledge and experience, his life was not encompassed by the law. He was married twice, in 1979 to Sheila Green, and in 2022 to Simone McGrath. James and Sheila had a wonderfully large family: five children and a growing band of grandchildren (one of his last tweets: ‘The number of my grandchildren has increased yet again, by another two’). His interests outside the law were wide and eclectic: reading, cinema, soul music and Northern Soul.

To non-lawyers, he might be best known from social media. James had over 32,000 followers on Twitter. His tweets, from which I have drawn in this obituary, are a lasting testimony to his intelligence, wit and willingness to join battle wherever, as he saw it, ‘injustice reared his ugly head’.

James is survived by his widow Simone, his children and grandchildren. He will be missed terribly by his colleagues in chambers, his clerks, his opponents at the bar (many of whom are now on the bench), his instructing solicitors, and his army of followers on Twitter and Bluesky.

His death leaves a gap at 1 KBW which cannot be filled, and a room which will take several months to clear. James Turner’s was a life well lived on so many counts. We will not look upon his like again.

Alexander Chandler KC