David Farrer, MA KC, is both an Old Elizabethan and a former teacher at Queen Elizabeth’s School.
A pupil at QE from 1954–1961, he was awarded an Open Scholarship to Downing College, Cambridge, where he read Part I in Modern Languages, Part II in Law and gained a post-graduate LLB in Public and Private International Law.
He taught Modern Languages at the School from 1965–1967 and was then called to the Bar.
“I practised as a barrister from 1968–2014, taking silk [becoming a Queen’s Counsel, or QC] in 1986. As a junior, I had a wide-ranging practice. In silk, I practised almost entirely in crime, moving over the years from murder etc. to financial crime, fraud, money-laundering and financial regulatory work.” [Upon the passing of The Queen, all those with silk immediately became King’s Counsel, or KC.]
Mr Farrer was a Crown Court Recorder from 1983–2015 and a part-time Tribunal Judge, sitting in the First Tier and Upper Tribunals on information rights and data protection from 2004–2018.
He stood for the Liberal Party and the Liberal SDP Alliance in the 1979 and 1983 General Elections respectively and was also a constituency Liberal Party chairman from 1985–1997.
His involvement with the School includes a period from around 1985 to 1990 when he served as Headmaster Eamonn Harris’s pro bono legal advisor. He has been a Governor since 2013.
Mr Farrer is married with three children and five grandchildren.