LORD JUSTICE BASIL KELLY:LORD JUSTICE Kelly, who has died aged 88, was a former attorney general in Northern Ireland and also served as Unionist MP for Mid-Down at Stormont between 1964 and 1972.
He once wore a bullet-proof vest and was guarded by SAS men because of IRA threats to his life. That was in 1983 when he presided at the trial in Belfast of 38 people implicated in Provisional IRA terrorism. He jailed 22 of the defendants for more than 4,000 years.
They were convicted on the evidence of a so-called supergrass, Christopher Black. During the trial he wore a bullet-proof vest and was protected by two policemen who stood on either side of him with rifles at the ready.
While in London to prepare his judgment, he was given round-the-clock protection by heavily armed SAS officers.
Eighteen of those convicted were freed three years later when they had their convictions overturned.
Sir Brian Kerr, Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland, in the course of a tribute said: "While maintaining the highest professional standards, Basil Kelly's ability to see the law as a tool for the alleviation of people's problems rather than an end in itself distinguished his practice as a barrister and his career as a judge."
Veteran court reporter Ivan McMichael said: "He will be remembered for his outstanding contribution to the legal scene, not least while discharging the office of attorney general, and then on the High Court bench, where he ended his career as a lord justice of appeal."
Born in Monaghan in 1920, he was the only son of Thomas William Kelly and his wife Emily Frances (née Donaldson). Educated at Methodist College, Belfast, he studied law at Trinity College Dublin and did his Bar studies at Queen's University Belfast, where he gained an LLB, before being called to the Bar in 1944.
In 1953 he was a member of the defence team at the trial of Ian Hay Gordon, who was charged with the murder in 1952 of Patricia Curran, daughter of Mr Justice Curran, at Whiteabbey, Co Antrim. Over 40,000 people were interviewed during the investigation of one of the North's most notorious non-political murders. Gordon was found guilty but insane.
Kelly was appointed a QC in 1958. Having acted as senior crown counsel, he became the North's attorney general in 1968. He had a key role as law officer of the Northern Ireland government in the civil rights period and in the months preceding the imposition of direct rule.
In May 1971 opposition MPs accused him of showing political bias in ordering court prosecutions.
He was made a judge of the Northern Ireland High Court in 1973.
In 1986 he sentenced four UDR men to life imprisonment for the murder of Adrian Carroll in Armagh in 1983.
In 1992 he ruled that undercover agents could not "expect to be immune" from punishment. This was in the case of Brian Nelson, who pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to murder and other related offences.
In 1995 he tried two British soldiers, Mark Wright and James Fisher, for the murder of Peter McBride in the New Lodge area of Belfast in 1992. They were convicted and given life sentences. Released in 1998, the two men were welcomed back into the army to resume their careers, a decision that caused widespread public anger.
Off the bench, he had a great passion for golf, although on one occasion he could be excused regret when an errant shot by another player at the annual Bar outing struck him on the ankle, breaking it.
For a couple of weeks afterwards he hobbled into court on a stick with the ankle in plaster.
He is survived by his wife, Pamela Colmer, whom he married in 1957, and their daughter, Caroline.
Sir John William Basil Kelly: born May 10th, 1920; died December 5th, 2008