RETIRED High Court judge Sir John Griffith Williams presided over the Halliwell case.

The judge appeared in the news when he oversaw the 2006 trial of paedophile Craig Sweeney, who abducted and sexually assaulted a three-year-old in Cardiff.

Sweeney, who was caught in Swindon, was given a life sentence by Griffith Williams.

Most notably Griffith Williams handed down the ruling for the April Jones murder case against Mark Bridger.

April, aged five, was murdered in October 2012 after she was abducted by Bridger in Powys. Her body was never found. Her disappearance generated a huge amount of national and international press coverage.

In May 2013, following a four-week trial Judge Griffith Williams ordered that Bridger never be released from prison and sentenced him to life imprisonment with a whole-life tariff.

Griffith Williams' became a barrister in 1968 becoming a member of the Queen’s Counsel in 1985. In 1993 he served as a deputy High Court judge and an assistant commissioner for the Boundary Commission for Wales from 1994 to 2000.

He was appointed the resident judge for Cardiff Crown Court from 2001 to 2007 and was presiding judge for the Wales Circuit from 2010-2013.

On January 11 2007 Griffith Williams was appointed a Justice of the High Court, he received a customary knighthood and assigned to the Queen’s Bench Division.

He retired from the High Court on December 21, 2014.

In July 2014 he was a chairman of the Special Immigration Appeals Commission.