Professor John Rason Spencer

By Lesley Dingle and Daniel Bates

Professor John Rason Spencer

• 1946: Born Chelmsford, Essex. Father Donald Edward Spencer, district surveyor; mother Catherine Mary nee Cozens
• 1950: Moved to rural Dorset,
• 1956: Moved to Sturminster Newton.
• 1957-64: Blandford Grammar School
• 1965-68: Selwyn College, Cambridge; Law Tripos (2.1s),
• 1968-9: LLB(I)
• 1969-70: Temporary Lecturer, Faculty of Commerce and Business Administration, University of Vancouver.
• 1970-73: Junior Fellowship, Selwyn College
  • 1973-76: University Assistant Lecturer
  • 1973: "Signature, Consent and the Rule in L' Estrange v. Graucob" Cambridge Law Journal 104-122 First publication
• 1976-91: University Lecturer
  • 1978-1981: Faculty Secretary
  • 1990: The Evidence of Children - the Law and the Psychology, (with Rhona Flin) Blackstone Press, 362 pp.
  • 1990-91: Visiting lecturer, University of Paris I and II
  • Initiated Erasmus Exchange Programme
  • Double Mâitrise with Paris II
• 1991-95: Reader
  • 1993: 2nd Edition, The Evidence of Children - the Law and the Psychology
• 1995-2013: Professor of Law
  • 1995-1997: Faculty Chairman
  • 2002: European Criminal Procedures (with Mireille Delmas-Marty) (eds), Cambridge University Press, 775pp.
  • 2003: QC (hons)
  • 2003: Academic Bencher, Inner Temple
  • 2006: Evidence of Bad Character, Hart Publishing, 254pp.
  • 2006: LLD
  • 2008: Hearsay Evidence in Criminal Proceedings, Hart Publishing, 341pp
  • 2009: Honorary President, European Criminal Law Association (UK)
  • 2010: Criminal Law: Theory and Doctrine (with G.R. Sullivan, A.P. Simester, F Stark and G.J. Virgo) , Hart Publishing, 4th Edit.
  • (stand-in) Director of CELS
  • UL Syndicate Member
  • Board of Scrutiny (Chairman)
  • Exam Complaints Review Committee Member
  • Docteur en droit, University of Poitiers (hon)
  • Chevalier de l'Ordre des Palmes Academiques
• 2013: Retired
  • 2013: Editor of Archbold Review
  • 2013 - present: Emeritus Fellow, Selwyn College
  • 2014: Noted but not invariably approved, Hart Publishing, 268pp
  • 2014-2020: Bye-Fellow, Murray Edwards College
  • 2014-2016: Vice-Chancellor's Deputy
  • 2017: CBE

Law Reform Committees etc

• 1989-90: Calcutt Committee, Privacy and the Press
• 1995-96: EU study group on fraud on EU finances: proposal for a European Public Prosecutor
• 2001: Consultant to Sir Robin Auld's Review of the Criminal Courts