Sir Nicholas Hardwick Fairbairn, (24 December 1933 – 19 February 1995) was a Scottish politician and advocate. He was the Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Kinross and Western Perthshire from October 1974 to 1983, and then for Perth and Kinross until his death in 1995. He was Solicitor General for Scotland from 1979 to 1982.
Early life
Nicholas Fairbairn was born in Edinburgh on 24 December 1933, the third child and second son of Mary Ann More-Gordon and Ronald Fairbairn, a psychoanalyst.
According to Fairbairn's autobiography A Life is Too Short (1987), his father adopted the maternal role after his mother rejected him at birth. Fairbairn describes their relationship from when he could converse with his father, for the next 20 years until old age affected his father, like that of twins with his father treating him as "his equal and confidant". Fairbairn credited this relationship as enabling him to "withstand the trauma and rejection I felt... enabled me to feel secure for the rest of my life against any rejection or misfortune... made me profoundly in awe of father figures and left me with a consistent feeling... that I am still a child." Fairbairn also said he was named after Saint Nicholas as he was born on Christmas Eve.
He was educated at Loretto School and the University of Edinburgh, where he graduated with an MA and an LLB. At the age of 23, he was called to the Scots Bar. On one occasion he wrote that the functions of this office were "to form a second pair of hands and often a first brain for the Lord Advocate". When the Conservatives were elected Fairbairn was the only Scottish QC in the Scottish Parliamentary Conservative Party, and it is thought that as a senior advocate of some considerable achievement in the criminal courts, he fully expected to be appointed Lord Advocate. However, his colourful opinions and reputation are thought to have impelled the then Lord Justice General, Lord Emslie, to tell Thatcher that the Scottish judiciary and legal profession were deeply opposed to having such a man as the senior law officer in Scotland. That led Thatcher to offer Fairbairn the secondary post of Solicitor-General for Scotland, and give the post of Lord Advocate to the then Dean of the Faculty of Advocates, J P H Mackay QC, who was then not even a member of the Conservative Party.
Just as it seemed he had managed to survive, a major controversy emerged in Glasgow. A prosecution was dropped in a case involving the gang rape and mutilation of a young woman after doctors determined she was too traumatized to serve as a credible witness. One journalist telephoned the Solicitor-General to ask why, and Fairbairn told him. This was a major breach of protocol, and Fairbairn had to resign. After a media campaign, a private prosecution was brought by the victim in 1982 under ancient Scottish law. It was known as the Carol X case. All three of the perpetrators were convicted, with one sentenced to 12 years in prison.
Fairbairn was again in the news in October 1982 when he was cited in the divorce case of investment consultant Alasdair MacInnes, having had an affair with MacInnes' wife Suzanne (whom Fairbairn ultimately married in 1983). When this was reported he launched an attack on the press for what he viewed as its "hypocritical moral crusades".
Views
The Independent said about Fairbairn's politics, "At heart he was a libertarian who wanted to espouse human rights and civil liberties. Realising the temper of the times, he moved during the Seventies to the radical right: the clash this involved with his instinctive penchant for moral and personal freedom made him an anarchist of the right".
Fairbairn was a staunch supporter of Section 28 of the Local Government Act 1988, which prohibited local authorities from "promoting homosexuality". He described the gay tenor Peter Pears as suffering from the "morbid squint" of homosexuality.
During parliamentary debates in 1994 regarding equalising the age of consent for heterosexual and homosexual acts, Fairbairn was called to order when he graphically described an act of anal sex between men "putting your penis into another man's arsehole is a perversion", which he considered a "psycho-pathological perversion". although earlier in his career had been a supporter of the Scottish Minorities Group, a Scottish gay rights organisation.
Final years
In 1983 he married Suzanne Mary Wheeler, known as Lady Sam Fairbairn. The cause was liver disease, a consequence of longstanding alcoholism. In the subsequent by-election, his seat was won by Roseanna Cunningham of the Scottish National Party, with the Conservatives falling to third place.
Posthumous allegations of child abuse and sexual assaults
Though he was never charged with any offence, allegations of child molestation against Fairbairn emerged after his death. He was also posthumously accused of sexual assault against an adult female. It was also alleged that his name was included on a list of 'VIPs' who frequented a 'paedophile-friendly' guest house in London; however, these specific claims are widely regarded as a hoax.