Michael Davies

Sir Alfred William Michael Davies (29 July 1921 – 5 September 2006) was a British barrister who served as a High Court Judge from 1973 to 1991. He was one of the first judges appointed specifically to hear defamation cases, one of the few areas of civil law in England in which a jury remains the tribunal of fact, and was in charge of managing the list of libel cases from 1988 to 1991.

In retirement, he conducted a visitor's inquiry into allegations of poor academic standards at University College, Swansea in 1992 to 1993, and was instrumental in the foundation of the Expert Witness Institute in 1996.

Early and private life Davies was born in Stourbridge and educated at King Edward VI College, Stourbridge. He read law at Birmingham University.

In 1990, he also presided over the libel case brought by Lord Aldington against Count Nikolai Tolstoy, in relation to allegations of bad faith in returning Cossacks to Joseph Stalin's Soviet Union and suspected Slovene Home Guard/Croatian Ustaše to Marshal Tito's Yugoslavia in 1945 at the end of the Second World War, which set a new record for libel damages of £1.5 million. He also sat on the libel case brought by Andrew Neil against Peregrine Worsthorne, in relation to a leading article in The Sunday Telegraph implying that Neil knew Pamela Bordes was a call-girl before their affair in 1988, and in other cases involving celebrities such as Elton John, Tessa Sanderson, Linford Christie, Viscount Linley, Ranulph Fiennes and Neil Kinnock.

Retirement

He retired in 1991, when he was Treasurer of Lincoln's Inn. He conducted a visitor's inquiry in 1992 to 1993 into the "Great Battle" at University College, Swansea, over allegations of poor academic standards in its MA in philosophy and health care.

He was founding chairman of the Expert Witness Institute in 1996, and enjoyed reading, golf, theatre and opera, particularly the Welsh National Opera, and black and white films.