Many QCs are brilliant — but just a tiny handful are in that alpha-league that makes them in highest demand. David Pannick is one: now chiefly sought-after for appellate work, he has appeared in 90 House of Lords’ cases (excluding leave applications), acting for and against successive home secretaries and in such promiment cases as whether Myra Hindley, the Moors murderer, should receive a whole-life tariff, the Spycatcher case and the challenge over the validity of the Hunting Act 2004. A Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford, since the age of 22, a QC since 36 and now just 52, his influence is also felt through his regular column for The Times Law section. Clients span the servicemen and women for whom he fought successfully at the European Court of Human Rights against the ban on homosexuals; the Queen, in obtaining a High Court injunction to stop publication of her domestic life by a reporter posing as a footman; and Greg Rusedski, the tennis player, at the sports tribunal where he was cleared of alleged doping. He is also an avid Arsenal fan. Recently of most significance was his intervention for Liberty in the law lords’ Belmarsh case, arguing that detention without charge was illegal and discriminatory - which found favour with the law lords. He is married to Nathalie, a solicitor, and they have two children. He also has three children by his late first wife, Denise.

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