My wife, Diana Ellis, who has died aged 80, was a barrister specialising in criminal and international law. She also served as a recorder (a part-time judge), and was appointed QC in 2001. But this conventional career followed a period of radicalism which, during the era of apartheid, included a risky clandestine mission to South Africa.
In the late 1960s, intent on becoming a social worker, she had enrolled at the London School of Economics to study for a diploma in social administration. While playing an active part in the LSE student disturbances of that time, she was arrested on a public order offence.
She also joined what have since become known as the London Recruits. These were a group of young people, mostly students and trade unionists, who wished to reassure the black population of South Africa that their plight had not been forgotten. Posing as tourists, pairs of them travelled to South Africa carrying ANC leaflets in false-bottomed suitcases. By packing the leaflets into locally purchased buckets and fitting them with small explosive charges, these Heath-Robinson “leaflet bombs” could be made to hurl their contents into the air. While causing no one physical harm they attracted much attention, so serving their intended purpose. Diana and her companion fled the country undetected.
Born in Stourbridge, in the West Midlands, Diana was the younger of two daughters of Irene (nee Behrens), a former actor, and Evan Ellis, a civil servant. The family moved to London and Diana went to Highbury Hill high school. Although her early school record was notable more for its sporting enthusiasm than for its academic commitment, one of Diana’s first paid jobs was in education.
Unperturbed by her lack of formal credentials, in 1971 the Italia Conti stage school in London appointed her to teach biology and geography. Academic as opposed to theatrical excellence not ranking so highly in those days, the school was satisfied with her performance. So were the pupils when Diana chose to interpret biology as sex education, and geography as where to go on your holidays.
A period of travel during the middle to late 60s had taken her to Europe and America, and included a year working on a kibbutz in northern Israel. It was when she joined LSE that she began to develop a new and lasting seriousness of purpose. The beneficiary of this outlook was not however social work - in which she spent only a brief period - but the law, for which she developed a lifelong devotion.
On completing a London University law degree she was called to the bar at the Inner Temple in 1978, took silk in 2001, and began a successful practice in criminal law. Following an extensive period of defence work for the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda she continued with a mixed practice in criminal and international law, the latter earning her an international reputation.
Diana and I first met in 1977, at a party to which she had been invited by a host who warned her that “there would be no one there she’d fancy”. We lived together and eventually married in 2001. She is survived by me, and by her sister, Liz.
