LYME REGIS: Clive Stafford Smith OBE, director of legal action charity Reprieve, returns to Woodmead Halls at 7.30pm on Monday, October 20, to talk on the theme ‘Torture: A Tradition – are we doomed to repeat it?’ His talk was arranged by the Lyme Regis group of Amnesty International in support of Amnesty’s 2014 global ‘Stop Torture’ campaign. Amnesty member Chris Boothroyd said: “A Symondsbury resident, active in the defence of St Michael’s Trading Estate in Bridport as well as of the most vulnerable victims of inhumanity, Clive has previously spoken in Lyme at the Woodroffe School and, in 2010, to local U3A members.

“On both those occasions his experience as an international lawyer working to bring about justice in extremely difficult situations, conveyed with passion and remarkable humour, has proved engaging and thought-provoking.”

Mr Boothroyd said: “Clive’s concern with torture started when his work on death rows around the world and in Guantanamo Bay brought him face-to-face with some of the worst abuses of modern society – practices that survived legal movements such as Habeas Corpus and the UN Convention Against Torture.”