Lord Kirkwood

Ian Candlish Kirkwood joined the Faculty of Advocates in 1957, after graduating at the universities of Edinburgh and Michigan. He took silk in 1970. He was also a former international chess player.

Lord Kirkwood was one of five judges, headed by Lord Cullen, then Lord Justice General, who heard and dismissed the appeal of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi against his conviction for the Lockerbie bombing.

He had a reputation as a genial, diligent and scrupulously fair judge.

Two of his cases which drew headlines involved dogs. In the first, he lifted a death sentence on Woofie, a mongrel whose cause had been championed by the animal rights campaigner and former actress Brigitte Bardot. In the second, he ruled that Sam, a West Highland Terrier whose barking made an elderly couple’s life a misery should not be put down but moved to a new home.