SIR CARL AARVOLD , RECORDER OF LONDON , RETIRES.

SIR CARL AARVOLD , RECORDER OF LONDON , RETIRES.

1st AUGUST , 1975.

Sir Carl Aarvold  retires as Recorder of London

Sir Carl Aarvold retired yesterday as Recorder of London. After 11 years as senior judge at the Central Criminal Court, and 21 years in all as a judge of that court, Sir Carl, now 68, celebrated his "feeling of enlarged freedom " by releasing on bail a young man on a violence charge because of his son's illness. He dispensed justice with unfailing courtesy and humanity and a complete lack of the irritability and impatience that unfortunately characterized some of his colleagues. He had a genuine appreciation of the problems of the inadequate and the disadvantaged; and his compassion was reflected in his attitudes to sentencing.

Born on 7th June, 1907 , he was educated at Durham School and Emmanuel College , Cambridge , and from 1928 until 1933 played 16 times for his country, captaining the side 6 times.

Embarking on a legal career, which was to take him to the top of his profession, Sir Carl was called to the Bar in 1932 and  by 1951 he was the Recorder of Pontefract and then as a judge at the Old Bailey, later as Common Serjeant. By now Master of the Inner Temple he was promoted to be Senior Judge ( Recorder of London ) at The Old Bailey in 1964 and knighted in 1968. In 1972 he was appointed chairman of the committee that recommended a tightening of the system governing the release of psychiatric offenders, in the wake of the activities of Graham Young, who poisoned several people after being released from Broadmoor.