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My friend Jeremy Connor, who has died aged 87, was a circuit judge in London from 1996 to 2004, having spent his earlier career as a barrister and then as a stipendiary magistrate.

Aside from his work directly inside courts, Jeremy was also, for many years, chair of two legal bodies – the Inner London Youth Courts, which oversees best practice in youth courts and examines sentencing data, and the Inner London and City of London Probation Committee, a statutory body in charge of probation services.

Born in Crowborough. East Sussex, Jeremy was the only child of Joseph, a builder, and Mabel (nee Adams), an artist. Educated at Beaumont school in St Albans, Hertfordshire, he went to University College London to read law and then trained at the Middle Temple before becoming a criminal law barrister.

He worked in that role until 1979, when he was appointed as a stipendiary magistrate in London at Bow Street magistrates court, taking on the chairmanship of the Inner London Youth Courts the following year and elected as chair of the Inner London and City of London Probation Committee in 1989.

For a number of years he was also an active member of the Institute for the Study of Treatment of Delinquency (now the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies), which tries to find better ways of dealing with young offenders through focused supervision and crime prevention.

Jeremy relinquished each of those roles in 1996, when he moved on to become a circuit judge, sitting in crown and county courts in London and also serving as a member of the Parole Board of England and Wales, helping to make decisions about the release of serious offenders on parole or life licence.

In retirement from 2004, he studied for a theology PhD at King’s College London, which he received in 2011. An articulate, approachable, outgoing and highly principled man, he also enjoyed watching opera, going to the theatre and travelling and writing.

He is survived by his partner of 55 years, Peter Lantos, an expert on neurodegenerative diseases who became professor of neuropathology at the Institute of Psychiatry at King’s College London. They were joined in legal partnership in 2006.