Leo Gradwell

Joseph Leo Anthony Gradwell DSC (28 July 1899 – 8 November 1969) was a British barrister, a magistrate and a Second World War Royal Navy volunteer, who in July 1942 against orders, led his own RN-adapted trawler HMS Ayrshire and three merchant ships from the disaster of Convoy PQ 17 into Arkhangelsk, Soviet Union. He was educated at Stonyhurst College, Lancashire and then read classics at Balliol College, Oxford. with a crew of volunteer fishermen.

Attached as part of the defensive net around Convoy PQ 17, on receiving the third order to scatter on 4 July 1942, Gradwell concluded that as he was heading north to the Arctic ice shelf, he might as well take some merchant ships with him. Leading his convoy of Ayrshire and three merchant vessels – the Panamanian-registered Troubador, the Ironclad, and the American-registered Silver Sword – he proceeded north using only a sextant and the Times World Geographic Pocket Book, as his vessel lacked charts for this part of the Atlantic. On reaching the Arctic ice pack, the convoy found itself stuck fast, so the ships stopped engines and banked their fires.

After a period of waiting, and having evaded the reconnoitering Luftwaffe aircraft, finding themselves unstuck they proceeded to the Matochkin Strait in Novaya Zemlya. Awarded the Distinguished Service Cross on 15 September 1942, he later went on to command the ASW-adapted whaler HMS Thirlmere (FY 206).

London magistrate After the end of hostilities, Gradwell returned to his career in court. He was made a stipendiary magistrate on the London circuit at Marlborough Street Magistrates' Court in 1951, where he shared an office in a tempestuous relationship with Edward Robey, the son of comedian George Robey. A few months later, he contracted polio; after successful treatment, he returned to his position as magistrate. during his career Gradwell processed the case of Stephen Ward during the Profumo affair,

After the British publishing rights to Hubert Selby, Jr.'s novel Last Exit to Brooklyn were acquired by Marion Boyars and John Calder in January 1966, Gradwell was the judge for the private prosecution brought by Sir Cyril Black, the then Conservative Member of Parliament for Wimbledon. The public prosecutor brought an action under Section 3 of the Obscene Publications Act, which Gradwell agreed with, and Gradwell ordered that all copies of the book be destroyed, though that applied only to seized copies within the Magistrate's Court. Expert witnesses spoke, "unprecedentedly," for the prosecution, including the publishers Sir Basil Blackwell and Robert Maxwell. The order was overturned by a successful appeal issued by the lawyer and writer John Mortimer: Mr Justice Lane reversed the ruling in 1968.

Death Retiring in 1967, Gradwell died at home in 1969, aged 70.