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Cleaning up this article

This article appeared as (yet another) toss-off from the Guantanamo Bay crowd.

I suggest we vamp up like we did for the Clive Stafford Smith article. Gareth is an amazing woman and she clearly deserves a better article.

Links and online profiles of Gareth Peirce

She was born Jean Gareth Peirce, but dropped her first name, btw.

Here are some online resources that might help

• speech on Samar and Jawad
• Portrayed by Emma Thomson in In the Name of the Father
• Telegraph article -- also awarded a CBE in the New Year's Honours List of 1999 for "services to justice" and educated at Cheltenham Ladies College and Oxford University.
• BBC Profile of Peirce
• LEX profile of radical lawyers

• The following are links to her firm, Birnberg, Peirce & Partners
  • Press Statement by Birnberg Peirce (November 8, 2005)
  • Firm Profile and Chambers Ranking

Gareth Peirce appears to be somewhat concerned not to let personal information about her appear and rarely co-operates with press profiles, making it more difficult to get information. However it is possible to find more when I can get to my library. Firstly her Oxford education must have been at one of five colleges (Lady Margaret Hall, Somerville, St. Hugh's, St. Hilda's or St. Anne's) as they were the only ones who admitted women undergraduates at the time. The Oxford list of members will identify which, and give us a clue as to birthdate as people normally go up to Oxford at the age of 18. Her life of 'interesting cases' is also well documented in newspapers and there are references in books about the Guildford Four and Birmingham Six, etc. She also supported striking miners in 1984-85. David | Talk 23:12, 18 October 2005 (UTC)

Thanks Dbiv! According to the Telegraph, Cheltenham Ladies College and Oxford University;

Also, she spent time in the US in the 1960s working as a journalist covering the civil rights movement-Martin Luther King. The BBC profile says, Returning to the UK (in the 1970's) she took a postgraduate course at the London School of Economics before being recruited as a solicitor by the radical law firm run by Benedict Birnberg. She lives lives in an end-of-terrace Victorian cottage in a leafy cul-de-sac in Kentish Town

From The Guardian

Lives Kentish Town, north London, with American husband, Bill. They have two adult sons

Education Cheltenham Ladies' College; Oxford University; postgraduate course at London School of Economics

Career Worked as a journalist in the US in the 1960s, covering Martin Luther King's civil rights campaigns

In 1974 was recruited as a trainee solicitor by the radical law firm run by Benedict Birnberg. Now a senior partner at the firm, Birnberg Peirce & Partners

Clients -- besides the Gurantanamo folks, there's former MI5 operative, David Shayler, Irish folks - the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, Judith Ward, Frank Johnson.

Thank yoU! Joaquin Murietta 00:15, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

It's coming along!

Thanks, DBIV, it is starting to shape up. Joaquin Murietta 00:16, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

"Born Jean Gareth Peirce"

...and "married Bill Peirce". A weird coincidence, or is one of these a mistake?

Vandalism

Reverted it to the old version that wasnt vandalised, I think it worked properly.

"People who declined a British honour"

Peirce did not decline an honour, she returned it. There is an important distinction here. To imply she turned it down suggests a principled stand. In reality, Peirce returned it after accepting it, later claiming that she always intended to do so. When one is honoured in such a way, one receives a formal letter from the Prime Minister's office well in advance of the public announcement. Why did she not decline the award by return of that letter? Was it so she could make a overt public and publicity-generating point, or did she later realise that acceptance went against everything she had previously claimed she stood for - and against? Either way, it does not look honourable or principled, but either a lack of judgement, or childish and vain point-scoring exercise. Now that's the Gareth Peirce we know, always trying to attack "the Establishment" she seems to hate so much. 86.7.208.240 00:13, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

• At last some truth rather than myth. Well done. -- 195.92.40.49 20:28, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

One cannot "return an honour", one only ceases to be a member of the order, once appointed, if the Sovereign expels the appointee from the order. She may have returned the insignia, but she remains a CBE. It is just an empty gesture, like the one made by John Lennon. He remained a MBE until the day he died. 650 Norton (1951) (talk) 17:14, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

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