Jan 1899, Alfred Thompson Denning, was born premature and weak, into a poor Victorian family in rural west of England. But, with a brilliant mind, and strong will, he rose to become a major Establishment figure in the highest UK Legal Offices in the land.

June-Sept 1963: Lord Denning’s special report for Harold Macmillan P.M., on The Profumo Scandal/Affair:

“.. the situation had been looked at in the wrong way by police, members of parliament and the security services. Rather than asking if Profumo had committed adultery they should have asked if his conduct had led ordinary people to believe he committed adultery. A man does not need to have committed adultery for his wife to have grounds to divorce him, but rather she simply has to believe that he has committed adultery. This is because such a belief would destroy the trust and confidence within the relationship.”

Denning's analogy was with divorce law, and brought criticism from government ministers including the Attorney-General saying that it would mean condemning a man on the basis of suspicion rather than evidence. Denning's final 70,000 word report was signed on 16 September and published ten days later. It was a best-seller; 105,000 copies were sold, 4,000 in the first hour, with people queuing outside H.M.Stationery Office. The full report was also published in The Daily Telegraph as a supplement and was described as "the raciest and most readable Blue Book ever published". It was criticised as a "whitewash", a claim Denning rejected; he said:

"..while the public interest demands that the facts should be ascertained as completely as possible there is a higher interest to be considered, namely the interest of justice to the individual which overrides all others. "

John Dennis Profumo was born in 1915 to a wealthy, aristocratic Sardinian family that had emigrated to Britain 30 years earlier. He was educated at elite school Harrow, and Oxford University. In 1940, he became U.K. youngest M.P. representing Kettering in central England. He lost his seat after the WW2, during which he achieved the rank of brigadier, but returned to Parliament in 1950 representing Stratford-upon-Avon. He was appointed secretary of state for war in 1960, charged with promoting military recruitment after conscription was abolished, and clearly with 'security implications'in his adulterous affair. Unlike more modern politicians, Profumo refrained from publishing memoirs or even rebutting allegations about his association with the upmarket prostitute Christine Keeler. Here is part of his correspondence with a journalist in 1995:

"Since 1963, there have been unceasing publications, both written and spoken, relating to what you refer to in your letter as 'the Keeler interlude'. The majority of these have increasingly contained deeply distressing inaccuracies, so I have resolved to refrain from any sort of personal comment, and I propose to continue thus."

In 1980, at age 81 with failing memory, during an appeal by the Birmingham Six (who were later acquitted) Lord Denning judged that the men should be stopped from challenging legal decisions. He listed several reasons for not allowing their appeal:

“Just consider the course of events if their action were to proceed to trial.. If the six men failed it would mean that much time and money and worry would have been expended by many people to no good purpose. If they won, it would mean that the police were guilty of perjury; that they were guilty of violence and threats; that the confessions were involuntary and improperly admitted in evidence; and that the convictions were erroneous. That was such an appalling vista that every sensible person would say, ‘It cannot be right that these actions should go any further’."

This archaic, pro-establishment, provocative remark has been re-stated thus, “It is better that an innocent man be imprisoned, than the system be brought into disrepute.”

Yet, on Denning’s own terms, surely the ‘Fair & Just British people’ (not just Mob-Rule profiteering tabloids) should be the final judge of such an 'unjust' suggestion.

Summary:

Well noted by the London Evening Standard,
" Profumo's fall marked the loss of (UK) innocence, the death of respect for the establishment, and the explosion of sex into the very center of (British) public life."

While far more seriously, pro-establishment Lord Denning’s 1963 & 1980 cowardly comments set ongoing, unchecked, and dangerous anti-Natural Justice sentiments. For the foreseeable UK future outrageously placing ‘ Cheap Popular Perceptions ’ above ‘ Hard Factual Evidence ’.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Denning,_Baron_Denning