It is with 'mixed feelings' that the most senior judge in Manchester, David Stockdale QC, is hanging up his robes. He admits his retirement, pencilled in months ago, has come at a bad time as the coronavirus crisis deepens.
But in an interview with the Manchester Evening News , Judge Stockdale, 68, fondly looked back at a legal career spanning more than 40 years - a career that culminated in him taking up one of the most senior roles in the judiciary. "I shall miss the work, and I will miss the people," he says from his chambers in the bowels of Manchester Crown Court in Spinningfields, an area which has changed so much since he started out in 1976. "I will miss the other judges and the staff. "It's a bad time to be going, at a time when