Lord Saville of Newdigate (61), who heads the new Bloody Sunday inquiry, is described by friends as "switched-on" and "trendy". His reputation as a moderniser largely stems from his efforts to drag the British judiciary into the computer age. He was the first to put a British Court of Appeal judgment on the Internet and chaired a committee on information technology and the courts. He has encouraged colleagues on the bench to use laptops and to communicate by email.
Currently he chairs the Lord Chancellor's Advisory Committee on Legal Education and Conduct.
Mark Oliver Saville was born in 1936 and educated at Rye Grammar School in West Sussex and Brasenose College, Oxford. He completed his National Service as a second lieutenant with the Royal Sussex Regiment from 1954 to 1956, was called to the Bar in 1962 and made a Queen's Counsel in 1975.
He became a High Court judge specialising in commercial matters in 1985 and dealt with the Lloyd's "names" cases during a period as head of the commercial court. A 1991 survey found he was one of the High Court judges whose judgments were least likely to face a challenge. In 1993 he was made a Lord Justice of Appeal.
He married his wife, Jill, in 1961 and the couple have two sons. In Who's Who, he lists his recreations as sailing and flying, and he recently flew over the Grand Canyon for a bet.
