My friend Keith Lomax, who has died aged 75, was a tenacious, talented and principled human rights lawyer whose court victories often benefited not only those he directly represented, but thousands more.
His success in Connors v United Kingdom in the European court of human rights (ECHR) in 2004 led to UK legislation giving Gypsies and Travellers living on local authority-run sites security of tenure. In 2007 the Labour government allocated £150m to improve medical help for vulnerable people in custody. It followed Keith’s victory in the ECHR representing the family of Judith McGlinchey, who died in prison after medical staff failed to monitor her drug withdrawal symptoms. From 2006 to 2011, Keith defended against eviction Travellers living on the Dale Farm site in Essex. He was declared legal aid lawyer of the year by the Legal Aid Practitioners’ Group in 2017.
Keith became a solicitor in 1985, having trained at Leeds Polytechnic and with the Leeds solicitors RC Moorhouse & Co and Sorkin Lester. Later he was a partner in the firm Davies Gore Lomax. Bryan Cox KC, who worked with Keith and knew him well, described him as “inspirational”. Cox said that even when defeated in court Keith could identify positive impacts.
Born in Bude, Cornwall, to Joan (nee Davies), who ran a guesthouse, and Arnold Lomax, who worked for the Cornwall Rivers Board, Keith attended Launceston college before studying geology at Leeds University. Following graduation in 1972, he continued there with a PhD, which took him into the western Sahara. There he discovered the plight of the Sahrawi people, who were driven into exile when Morocco invaded their territory, and he became committed to their cause.
His friendship with Dave Rabkin, an anti-apartheid activist whom he met at Leeds, led to Keith’s involvement in the international campaign against the racist South African regime.
In the early 1970s, Keith was part of a small group of anarchists and libertarians who launched Leeds Other Paper as an alternative to the establishment’s Yorkshire Post newspapers. As the first paid member of staff, he had to do everything: reporting, photography, editing, layout, advertising and distribution. LOP survived for 20 years – one of the longest-running “alternative” newspapers founded in those politically volatile times. I was a reporter on the Yorkshire Evening Post, and Keith and I met when Keith joined the NUJ.
Between 1985 and 2014, Keith was active with the Woodcraft Folk youth movement, whose principles are rooted in social justice, pacifism and cooperation. Through Keith, Woodcraft hosted children from the Sahrawi refugee camps.
In 1998, he moved to a farmhouse in the Yorkshire Pennines, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Keith is survived by Julie Thorpe, who became his civil partner in 2019, their children, Ben and Georgia, a son, Tom, from his marriage to Liz Storey, which ended in divorce, and his brother, Colin.
