Ian Burnett

Ian Duncan Burnett, Baron Burnett of Maldon, Kt PC (born 28 February 1958) is a British judge and the current Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales.

Burnett was born on 28 February 1958. He was educated at St John's College, Portsmouth, and read jurisprudence at Pembroke College, Oxford, where he became an honorary fellow in 2008.

He was called to the bar at Middle Temple in 1980, and became a bencher there in 2001. From 1982, he practised at Temple Garden Chambers, serving as head of chambers from 2003. He was made a QC in 1998. He practised mainly in public and administrative law, acting on the inquiry into the 1987 Kings Cross fire, the inquiry into the convictions of the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, the inquiries after the 1997 Southall rail crash and the 1999 Ladbroke Grove rail crash, and the inquests after the 1997 deaths of Diana, Princess of Wales, and Dodi Fayed.

Burnett served as an Assistant Recorder from 1998 to 2000, and then as a Recorder until 2008.He also served as a deputy Judge of the High Court from 2008. He was appointed as a Justice of the High Court in 2008, in the Queen's Bench Division. Burnett was knighted on 7 November 2008. He sat in the Administrative Court and was presiding Judge of the Western Circuit 2011–14. He was promoted to the Court of Appeal in 2014, becoming a Lord Justice of Appeal.

It was announced in July 2017 that he would replace Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd as Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales from 2 October 2017.

Aged 59, he became the youngest Lord Chief Justice since Lord Parker of Waddington in 1958. On 12 October 2017, it was announced that Burnett would be awarded a life peerage. He was created Baron Burnett of Maldon, of Maldon in the County of Essex, on 30 October 2017.

He married Caroline Ruth Monks in 1991, and they have one son and one daughter.