Judge dies in fall from fourth-floor flat

Judge dies in fall from fourth-floor flat

12.15pm

Fred Attewill and agencies
Monday June 25, 2007
Guardian Unlimited

A crown court judge fell 50ft to his death from his home in an exclusive block of flats last week, it was reported today.

Rodney McKinnon fell from a window of his flat in Dolphin Square, central London, suffering fatal head injuries. He was declared dead after being found in the building's courtyard garden.

Scotland Yard is not treating his death as suspicious, although it is not clear whether the 64-year-old had meant to take his own life or died accidentally. A police report has been passed to the coroner.

It had been reported the judge, who sat at Southwark crown court, lost his balance after climbing onto a desk in his fourth-floor flat, but police have refused to comment on the circumstances surrounding his death.

"A 64-year-old man fell from a window in Dolphin Square on Thursday," a police spokesman said. "He suffered fatal head injuries."

Mr McKinnon lived alone in at the block of flats in Pimlico, which has long been home to peers, wealthy businessmen and high society figures. He had lived there for 10 years.

"Everybody is completely devastated that something so awful could have happened in our midst," Patricia McVicar, a resident at the complex, told The Times.

Brendan Martin, the chairman of the tenants' association, said Mr McKinnon was "very well known and well liked, particularly among the older residents".

Police said a post mortem examination would be carried out tomorrow, and an inquest will be held at Westminster coroner's court. Toxicology tests to establish whether the judge had been drinking when he fell last Thursday could be ordered after the post mortem.

Mr McKinnon, who was sworn in as a judge on the same day as his brother, Warwick, in 1998, has presided over several high-profile cases.

In 2005, he ordered ex-public schoolboy Julian de Vere Whiteway-Wilkinson to pay £2.1m in illegal profits for his part in a multi-million pound operation to supply cocaine to City workers and celebrities, or face a further 10 years in jail.