Judge Harold Henry Sebag-Montefiore

Harold Sebag-Montefiore, who died on October 5, 2011 aged 86, combined a career at the Bar and two decades' involvement with London local government, a leading position in the Jewish community and a lifelong love of horses and polo.

He exerted his greatest influence between 1968 and 1971, when his chairmanship of the GLC's Arts and Recreation Committee and presidency of the Anglo-Jewish Association overlapped. In the former role he facilitated the English National Opera's move from Sadler's Wells to the Coliseum and the eventual revival of Shakespeare's Globe Theatre. In the latter, he promoted the welfare of co-religionists from Aden to Leningrad, and pressed ministers to be forthright in condemning anti-Semitic acts by foreign governments, notably Iraq's hanging of Jews as "traitors".

He had a sharp political tongue, raising Labour hackles by saying that the party was out to destroy London's grammar schools because "working-class children got places there, went into white-collar jobs and then voted Conservative".

Harold Henry Sebag-Montefiore was born on December 5 1924, the elder son of John Sebag-Montefiore and the former Violet Solomon. He was educated at Stowe and, in wartime, at Lower Canada College, Montreal, before joining the RAF. After the war he went up to Pembroke College, Cambridge, before being called to the Bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1951.

In 1955 he was elected to the LCC (forerunner of the GLC) for Streatham. Soon after, he applied for the Enfield Chase Hunt to hunt foxes in Kenwood, five miles from Charing Cross, because Highgate residents were losing their poultry. The Parks Committee chairman told him that pest control officers could do the job.

At the 1959 general election he fought marginal North Paddington from his Irish chaser Ready Money. Despite a national swing to the Conservatives he fell short by 786 votes. He fought the seat again at the 1961 LCC elections – having given up safer Streatham – but was again defeated; he stayed on the council as an alderman.

Sebag-Montefiore sided with the Macmillan government in replacing the LCC – which covered the capital's inner core – with a GLC spanning the conurbation. He was returned for the Cities of London and Westminster in its first elections, chairing its Licensing Committee and from 1968 its Arts and Recreation Committee. As licensing chairman, he launched a drive against car tax dodgers and withstood a campaign from Lady Dartmouth to ban the film of James Joyce's Ulysses – which she had not seen.

His reign as London's recreation supremo began controversially, as the GLC tried to persuade boroughs to take over all but the largest of the city's 160 parks; they resisted because of the running costs, and it took until 1971 to arrange a handover. That year he allowed Christian Action to use Wormwood Scrubs, still in GLC ownership, as an emergency camp for 2,000 young tourists, only for the borough council to refuse planning permission, fearing an invasion of hippies.

Sebag-Montefiore left the GLC in 1973 to become a deputy circuit judge, sitting regularly at the Old Bailey; he also served on the disciplinary committee of the Bar Council. He believed in exemplary justice, sending a youth who assaulted a bus conductor to borstal with the warning that others could expect the same treatment, and fining a hospital manager £100 for sounding an ambulance's siren when there was no emergency.

He was a council member of the Anglo-Netherlands Society, a liveryman of the Spectacle Makers' Company, and a trustee of the National Theatre, the International Festival of Youth Orchestras, Whitechapel Art Gallery and the William and Mary tercentenary. He was made a Chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1973 for his contribution to cultural exchange with France.

Harold Sebag-Montefiore married Harriet Paley in 1968; they had one daughter.

Harold Sebag-Montefiore, born December 5 1924, died October 5 2011

Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/religion-obituaries/8879...