Anthony Barrowclough

Barrowclough was born with his twin brother Jack in 1924 in Nottinghamshire, the son of Sidney Barrowclough, a farmer. The family later moved to Kent where Sidney became the proprietor of a dairy business in the outskirts of London. Barrowclough was educated at Stowe with his brother before he joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in 1943. He trained as a navigation officer and served on motor torpedo boats with coastal forces.

After the war, Barrowclough went to New College, Oxford where he took first class honours in law and was awarded a certificate of honour. In 1949, he was called to the Bar by Inner Temple and joined chambers at 7 King's Bench Walk. Barrowclough undertook a range of commercial work and specialised in aeronautical law, an area in which he lectured at Oxford.

Barrowclough became a part-time member of the Monopolies' Commission in 1966. When two high street menswear retailers, United Drapery Stores and Montague Burton, sought to merge in 1969, the Commission rejected the proposal. When Barrowclough dissented from this decision, he was effectively stood down from the Commission by the Chairman, Sir Ashton Roskill.

Between 1972 and 1984, Barrowclough served as a Crown Court recorder. He took silk in 1974, and became a Bencher of the Inner Temple in 1982.[1]

Barrowclough was the second lawyer to be appointed to the post of Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman in 1985. There was a downward trend in the number of complaints received by the Office: from 759 in 1985 to 677 in 1989. The number of Members of Parliament using the services of the Office dropped from 373 in 1985 to 359 in 1989, the lowest since 1974. There was also a concurrent drop in reports, from 177 in 1985 to just 120 in 1989.[2]

The Office became entangled with the Lord Chancellor's Department as to whether the administrative actions of the courts should be open to investigation. The Department refused to shift from its position that the administration work was in the exercise of the courts' function of administerting justice. By 1989, ten investigations against the Department were suspended because of its objections. Barrowclough's term as Ombudsman also witnessed the expansion of the Office's jurisdiction to encompass 50 non-departmental public bodies (quangos). However, few referrals were made about complaints against these bodies.

Although Barrowclough was no less busy than his predecessors in publicising the work of the Office, even with the extension of jurisdiction, the number of complaints received by the Office continued to drop. This raised questions about the way the Office was handling its caseload.

In July 1985, Robin Maxwell-Hyslop MP put down an Early Day Motion which was critical of the performance of the Ombudsman, describing the Office as 'unacceptably slothful' in the performance of its duties. The Select Committee invited Maxwell-Hyslop to give evidence on the case which moved him to table his motion and he did so, revealing that the case he referred took 15 months to complete. Maxwell-Hyslop said that the delay was 'intolerable', 'disgraceful' and 'shameful'; a letter received from Barrowclough was 'astonishingly complacent'.

Barrowclough rejected the accusation of slothfulness, noting that the staff had been working diligently and were working on other cases beside that referred by Maxwell-Hyslop. Barrowclough explained that the case in question was dealt with a section of the Office which was dealing with significant tax and agriculture cases. The Select Committee asked Barrowclough how the Office would cope with the difficulties of such lengthy investigations. A Cabinet Office review also followed.

Barrowclough sought to recruit extra staff and transfer more cases between investigators to avoid bottlenecks. However, the average time taken to complete an investigation continued to lengthen, reaching 15 months by the end of 1989. The Cabinet Office review suggested a large degree of delegation and changes in investigation practice. Barrowclough maintained that the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 required his personal involvement in each case. He insisted, against the criticism, that the Office maintain the highest standards of investigative thoroughness and reporting quality. When Barrowclough departed the Office in 1989, the casework was what he described as 'low volume, high density' and given rigorous attention unlike that administered by comparable offices elsewhere.[3]

In handling health complaints, Barrowclough's tenure as Ombudsman was dominated by the challenges of the increasing volume of cases, growing criticism of the time taken to complete cases and the ongoing conundrum of how to satisfactorily to deal with complaints about family practitioners and matters of clinical judgment. These issues remained unresolved. He handled some health complaints of note during his tenure.

A woman who sought an independent professional review in 1985 of the circumstances surrounding the death of her four-day-old daughter complained of delays in arranging and conducting the investigation. Eighteen months were taken between the initial request and sending the report to the complainant during which there were delays and false assurances. Barrowclough commented that it was 'intolerable that the complainant, having suffered the tragic death of her baby, should have her ability to come to terms with such a tragic loss hampered by such serious maladministration'.[4] Barrowclough also reported on a case where a former hospital patient discovered full-frontal naked photographs of himself in a medical textbook which had been written by the professor who had treated him. The photographs had been used without the patient's knowledge or consent and Barrowclough criticised the breach of confidentiality.[5]

Another case received tabloid attention when a patient in a women's ward complained that she had suffered distress when nurses had failed to prevent a drunken man from having sexual intercourse with his wife in a nearby hospital bed. Barrowclough recorded dryly that 'the complainant said that the husband had started fondling his wife's breast but his wife had deterred him because they were 'not alone'. Barrowclough continued that 'my officer asked the complainant to describe what had happened then; she said that she could hear 'everything' and she instanced the bed creaking, but she could not see anything'.

The report methodically noted that a nurse found the curtains drawn around the bed and called out "Do you want a hand?" to which the drunken man replied "No thanks, I can manage".[6] When the Ombudsman issued the report, The Sun printed the story with the headline 'Oh nurse, I'm feeling a little dickie!'.

At the conclusion of his term as Ombudsman, Barrowclough served as a council member and tribunal chairman of the Financial Intermediaries, Managers and Brokers Regulatory Association (FIMBRA).

Barrowclough moved to Winsford, Exmoor. He chaired the Dartmoor Steering Group, through which he liaised with Army commanders over military activities on the moor.[1]

Barrowclough died in 2003. In his obituary he was described as having 'a fine legal mind with a high sense of fairness and plain dealing'. Of his work at the Ombudsman it was commented that 'he left no stone unturned in his inquiries, working extraordinarily long hours with a small support staff to reach his conclusions.'[1]

• BARROWCLOUGH, Sir Anthony (Richard), Who Was Who, A & C Black, 1920–2015; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014