Stephen Bacon obituary: media lawyer for national newspapers

Times

2 days ago

Burning the midnight oil as he scrutinised the next day's newspaper for defamation and contempt gave Stephen Bacon a thriving career in media law. Much of it was spent with Express Newspapers, including the Daily and Sunday Express titles and the Daily Star whose editors were renowned for pushing the legal limits.
From time to time he appeared in court apologising for the misdemeanours of his client paper and disclosing a financial settlement to the judge. In 1989 the cricketer Ian Botham heard Bacon withdraw the Daily Star's libellous claim that he had been involved in a pub brawl, while in 2007 Danielle Lloyd, a former Miss Great Britain, donated her damages to charity after he apologised for allegations that she had been intimate with a nightclub DJ.
On one occasion he apologised to Tom Cruise and Nicole Kidman after what started as a laudatory newspaper feature was mistakenly leavened by the inclusion of unsubstantiated rumours. Cruise attended the hearing and afterwards they spoke directly, with Bacon expressing his sorrow that things had gone awry. 'I believe he genuinely accepted this and I came away thinking what a thoroughly nice person he was,' Bacon said.
He once came face to face with Ian Brady, the Moors murderer, who was pursuing the Sunday Express over a story alleging that he had tried to force himself on a female visitor. For security reasons the hearing took place at Ashworth Hospital, Liverpool, though Bacon had to explain firmly to his insistent editor that he would be in contempt of court by surreptitiously taking a picture of Brady for the paper.
Among the cases that gave Bacon the most pleasure was the one in which Lord Archer of Weston-super-Mare was ordered to repay a £500,000 libel settlement from 15 years earlier, having been jailed in 2001 for perverting the course of justice. Afterwards he gave a satisfied interview to Legal Director magazine under the headline 'The long wait for justice'.
Despite being a man of forthright opinions, Bacon had a great affection for journalists even though they constantly solicited free legal advice or requested his signature on passport photographs. 'I was usually told that I would be bought a drink by way of thanks; such drinks almost never materialised.' However, there were also surreal occasions. When the Coronation Street storyline included the arrest of Deirdre Rachid (later Barlow) for murder, the Daily Star took up the character's cause under the banner 'Free the Weatherfield One' and Bacon was required to write a legal opinion under the headline 'Our legal eagles will fight for her'.
Stephen Francis Theodore Bacon was born in Oldham in 1945, the only child of Dr Frank Bacon, a theologian, and Cecila (née Pursglove), who became headmistress of a Manchester comprehensive school. As a boarder at the Perse School, Cambridge, he excelled at cross-country running but never learnt to swim.
He read law at King's College, London, where his degree included an element of theology that he later used in debates with the local vicar. He was called to the Bar 'one balmy summer's evening' in 1969, a few minutes before Brenda Hale. Both joined the Northern Circuit as pupil barristers in Manchester, though she became president of the Supreme Court while 'after some ten years as a general common lawyer' he 'ended up in the rough and tumble of being 'the lawyer' at national newspapers'.
Bacon's connection with the Daily Express began in 1971 as an occasional night lawyer in the paper's Manchester office, checking stories before they went to press. Winnie Johnson, whose son Keith Bennett was murdered by Brady and Myra Hindley, worked in the paper's canteen and 'always kept Daily Express journalists up to date in any developments [and] also made a very good sausage barm cake'.
In 1973 he married Susan Johnson. He is survived by their son Nicholas, who has served in uniform. Their daughter, Hannah, died in 2009, aged 29. The marriage was dissolved and in 2001 he married Felicity Quant, a journalist whom he met at the Express offices. She survives him with their daughter Clio, who is studying law.
Bacon formally joined Express Newspapers as an in-house lawyer in 1978, shortly after it launched the Daily Star as a red-top rival to The Sun. In the mid-1980s he moved to the company's London offices, having previously provided holiday cover there. New owners and policies at the turn of the century brought fewer high-risk stories, though a steady flow of complaints remained, notably about the titles' coverage of the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in May 2007. 'In this case sales increased with each new twist to the story. Not a bad thing, until a legal problem arises,' he wrote. Again it fell to him to clear up the mess, draft an apology and negotiate a financial settlement.
'Forcibly retired', as he put it, in 2011, he took locum work at The Times, Sunday Times and The Sun. Despite living for many years in Kent, he retained a taste for northern cuisine, including pork pies and chips fried in beef dripping. He was a fine cook, often threatening to enter MasterChef, and had a wide range of interests including steam and model railways, horse racing at Sandown and following the fortunes of Lancashire county cricket club.
After more than 50 years spent offering advice to editors and journalists, Bacon was well placed to observe how media law has developed, especially in relation to privacy. 'The law was comparatively straightforward when in the 1980s the Daily Star was censured by the Press Council, a predecessor of Ipso, [for publishing] a photo of Princess Diana taken from an adjacent Caribbean island with a long lens,' he wrote in a letter to The Times in 2023. However, he concluded with a note of caution: 'Today the law of privacy is far more complex, uncertain and strict.'
Stephen Bacon, media lawyer, was born on September 3, 1945. He died from prostate cancer on July 13, 2025, aged 79