Robert Jay

Sir Robert Maurice Jay (born 20 September 1959), styled The Hon. Mr Justice Jay, is a judge of the High Court of Justice of the Courts of England and Wales. He became known by the general public for his role as counsel to the Leveson Inquiry.

Jay was born on 20 September 1959. He is the son of the late Professor Barrie Samuel Jay, a consultant surgeon at Moorfields Eye Hospital, and Marcelle Ruby Jay.

He was educated at King's College School, an independent school for boys in Wimbledon in South West London. He won an Open Scholarship to New College at the University of Oxford, where he obtained a First in Jurisprudence. He was a contemporary of the later actor and film star Hugh Grant. He later completed his pupillage with Simon D. Brown (now Baron Brown of Eaton-Under-Heywood).

Jay was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1981. From 1989 to 1998 he served as a junior counsel to the Crown (common law). He was appointed a Queen's Counsel in 1998. He was a Recorder from 2000 to 2013 and was approved to sit as a deputy High Court judge. He was counsel to the Leveson Inquiry into phone-hacking and media ethics, where he first came to wide public attention during the Inquiry's televising and extensive media reporting. On 4 June 2013, he was appointed a High Court judge, receiving the customary knighthood, and assigned to the Queen's Bench Division.

During the televising of the Leveson Inquiry, Jay became publicly known for an adept use of rarely used words, such as condign, pellucidly and adumbrate, for highlighting apparent discrepancies in witnesses' emailed descriptions of events, and possible collusion between witnesses, as “light refracted through two intermediate prisms”, and for humorous asides such as “I’m beginning to sound irritated, but I am”. At one point during the Leveson Inquiry, he was seen to mouth to colleagues: "This is such fun”.

Jay is interested in history, art, classical music (particularly opera, and Wagner's Ring Cycle), and is also keen on chess, cookery, golf and cycling.

Jay and his wife Deborah, who is an author, have a daughter.