Mark Curtis provides an introduction to Dame Victoria Sharp, who will rule next week on the WikiLeaks publisher’s bid to stop his extradition to the U.S.
Judge Victoria Sharp, standing second from right. (Screengrab: RCJ via DeclassifiedUK)
By Mark Curtis
Declassified UK
Dame Victoria Sharp has been announced as the High Court judge who will next week rule on Julian Assange’s bid to stop his extradition to the U.S.
The WikiLeaks publisher has been held as a political prisoner in Belmarsh maximum security jail in London since April 2019. If extradited, he faces a U.S. sentence of 175 years in prison.
One of his previous judges, Westminster chief magistrate Lady Arbuthnot, is married to a former Conservative defence minister and previously received financial benefits from partner organisations of the Foreign Office.
Another past judge, Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett, is a long standing good friend of the British minister who enabled Assange’s arrest by forcing him out of his asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London.
Dame Victoria’s family also have a particular relationship with the Conservative Party.
In it Together
Her father was Baron Sharp of Grimsdyke, a life peer who was knighted in 1984. He was chair of telephone giant Cable & Wireless throughout the 1980s, and privatised the business after being approached by former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s industry secretary, Keith Joseph.
Eric Sharp began his career working in the government’s Ministry of Power. He is mentioned in a WikiLeaks cable in his capacity as chair of U.S. chemicals giant Monsanto, a position he held from 1975-81.
Dame Victoria’s twin brother Richard was the chair of the BBC from 2021-23, having been appointed to this position by then Prime Minister Boris Johnson.
Sharp resigned after a report found he had breached rules on public appointments. He had helped to arrange an up to £800,000 loan guarantee for Johnson while he was prime minister.
Before being appointed as BBC chair, Sharp had donated over £400,000 to the Conservative Party.
Richard Sharp also has a connection to the current prime minister who would likely not be devastated to see Assange traverse the Atlantic.
Sharp previously spent over 20 years working for banking giant Goldman Sachs and reportedly oversaw the work there of Rishi Sunak during his early years in the finance industry.
Appointment
U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May in 2018. (No. 10, Flickr)
Dame Victoria was appointed to her lofty position as president of the then Queen’s bench division of the High Court (now the King’s Bench Division), in April 2019 — the first woman to secure the post.
She gained her role on the advice of then Prime Minister Theresa May and Justice Secretary David Gauke. The appointment followed a recommendation from Lord Chief Justice Ian Burnett.
Last year Sharp just lost out being appointed lady chief justice, the highest law officer in the land, when another senior judge, Dame Sue Carr, won the contest between them.
As a QC before her appointment to the High Court, Sharp acted in several high profile cases, for example representing media corporations Associated Newspapers and Times Newspapers.
In 2021, Sharp sentenced nine climate protesters from Insulate Britain to prison for a range of two-to-six months for their peaceful disruption of road infrastructure.
More recently she presided over Brexit donor Aaron Banks’ libel case against journalist Carole Cadwalladr. Sharp ruled that Cadwalladr must pay 60 percent of Banks’ legal costs, amounting to around £1m.
The ruling was widely criticised by press freedom groups and media outlets for encouraging the stifling of public interest journalism.
Assange’s case is an even greater demonstration of a similar threat: whether someone who reveals the truth about U.S. and Western foreign policies should be allowed by British authorities to be sent to his effective death at the behest of a foreign power.
Mark Curtis is the editor of Declassified UK, and the author of five books and many articles on UK foreign policy.
This article is from Declassified UK.
On that top photo, which one is John Cleese? I can’t make him out.
Julian Assange did not leak (an offence – undertaken by Chelsea Manning) but published US classified information as did the New York Times and the Guardian … neither newspaper has faced any charges. A two-tiered justice system.
If the world wasn’t infested with millions of human lemmings, we would laugh out loud at these wigged throwbacks who ridiculously have power over the British people. Ours are no better even without wigs. I can’t believe we all let them do this to us. Mind-boggling!!!
Amazing how the incestuous cronies violate conflicts- of-interest rules, now called “competing” interests, as if killing people with slow torture is a cricket game.
It was the most grave error for Julian to allow these circumstances to come about. I support him utterly, but am aware of how the forces of darkness came to capture him. My hope is that they will spare his life, but I am not a child. These people are merciless in their tyranny. The Australian parliament and its PM called for Julian’s release in recent days. The powerlessness of vassal states will be exposed for all to see. Powerless subservience, as nothing will change after our fellow citizen is condemned for the truth. We will always obey, even when it is patent that the law is farce.
100% establishment stooge, Julian has had it.
I’m ashamed of the cesspit that my country the UK is – I hope these monsters will burn in hell for what they’re doing to JA.
Barbaric scumbags, the lot of them
Outlined here is the incestuous relationships that keep the ruling class in power. The rot and stench of corruption in the halls of Western power is bad enough to make a city landfill smell like a mountain of roses.
Free Assange!