Background
LAWRENCE, Ivan John was born on December 24, 1936. Parents: Leslie Lawrence.
LAWRENCE, Ivan John was born on December 24, 1936. Parents: Leslie Lawrence.
Lawrence was educated at the former Brighton, Hove and Sussex Grammar School and is President of the School"s Old Boys" Association.
Born in Brighton, Lawrence was the only child of parents of Russian-Romanian Jewish descent. He read jurisprudence at Christ Church, Oxford, where he became president of Oxford University Progressive Jewish Society. From 1955-1957, he did National Service in the Royal Air Force and served in Malta during the Suez Crisis.
He was called to the Bar by the Inner Temple in 1962, Queen"s Counsel in 1981, a Recorder of the Crown Court in 1985, a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1991, and was knighted in 1992.
Lawrence, having twice unsuccessfully stood for the Peckham constituency in 1966 and 1970, was elected Member of Parliament for Burton in February 1974. He held the seat until May 1997 when he lost to Labour"s Janet Dean.
He was Chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee from 1992 to 1997 and was Chairman of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (United Kingdom Branch) from 1995 to 1997. His Private Members Bill in 1991 instigated the national lottery, and in 1985 he made the longest speech in Parliament that century (on the Water Fluoridation Bill).
He was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Laws "Honoris Causa" by the University in March 2013.In April 2015, he became a Visiting-Professor at the BPP University Law School.
He is well=known as an after-dinner and cruise-line speaker. His memoir, "My Life of Crime: cases and causes", was published by Book Guild on 30 September 2010 and reprinted in paper-back on 1 February 2012. He has been a delegate to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust.
He has defended in over 85 murder trials, and has appeared in a number of notable criminal trials, for example the Kray twins (gang-land murders), the serial killer Dennis Nilsen, Russell Bishop (Brighton Babes in the Wood murder), the Mountnessing silver bullion robbery, the Brink"s-Mat gold bullion money-laundering, and a mass-murder war crimes trial at the Hague.
46th United Kingdom Parliament. 47th United Kingdom Parliament. 48th United Kingdom Parliament.
49th United Kingdom Parliament.
50th United Kingdom Parliament. 51st United Kingdom Parliament]
He was a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee from 1982 to 1992, and served on a number of other Parliamentary Committees concerned with health, employment, social services and law and order.
Lawrence is now a member of 5 Pump Court Chambers, a Fellow of the Society for Advanced Legal Studies, was an elected member of the Bar Council (2004–2010) and is Visiting Professor of Law at the University of Buckingham.
Spouse Gloria Helene Crankshaw, 1966. Children: one d.