Tributes have been paid to a respected former barrister and judge who has died in a fire at his home.

Gerald Lumley, 60, was found by firefighters in his flat in Burley, Leeds, last Friday evening, and was pronounced dead at hospital.

Police say there are no suspicious circumstances.

Mr Lumley, who lived alone in the top-floor flat, was a leading barrister in the area and also sat as a recorder, a part-time judge, on the North-East Circuit.

He resigned as a judge soon after unsubstantiated allegations about his private life, which he always denied, were made by a national newspaper in 1994. He was based at barristers chambers in Leeds but had not practised for some years.

Tributes to Mr Lumley will be paid at Bradford Crown Court on Friday, led by the Recorder of Bradford Judge James Stewart QC, who worked with him on the Strangeways Jail riot trial.

Yesterday, the head of the Bradford barristers chambers, Graham Hyland QC, said: “I am a long-standing friend and colleague of Gerald Lumley, and he was much loved and greatly respected. He will be badly missed by his many friends and colleagues, both at the Bar and on the Bench.”