John May (judge)

Sir John Douglas May, PC (28 June 1923 – 15 January 1997) was a British Court of Appeal judge appointed by the British Government to investigate the miscarriages of justice related to the Maguire Seven and other miscarriages linked to IRA bombing offences.

May was educated at Clifton College and Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Scholar. During World War II, he served with the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve. He was called to the bar by the Inner Temple in 1947 and took silk in 1965. He was appointed to the High Court and assigned to the Queen's Bench Division in 1972, receiving the customary knighthood. In 1982, he was made a Lord Justice of Appeal and made a Privy Counsellor, serving until 1989.

On 20 October 1989 following the quashing of the Guildford Four convictions, May was appointed to chair an inquiry into both that case and the related case of the Maguire Seven.

On 12 July 1990, the Home Secretary David Waddington published the interim report, Interim Report on the Maguire Case: The Inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the convictions arising out of the bomb attacks in Guildford and Woolwich in 1974.

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