Obituary: Rufus Harris (original) (raw)

The following correction was printed in the Guardian's Corrections and clarifications column, Tuesday May 1 2007

In the summer of 1967 Rufus Harris, who has died of cancer aged 61, and the artist Caroline Coon formed Release, an underground organisation that provided legal advice and welfare services to young people arrested for drugs offences. Jonathan Aitken, who did much to smooth the way for Release, commented at the time that if Release did not exist it would have to be invented. High-profile clients included John Lennon and George Harrison, who donated £5,000 in 1969.

Release gained charitable status in 1972, following a review of its activities by the Rowntree Foundation. By the mid-1970s, Release had become "official", supported directly by a Home Office grant, without compromising its libertarian principles. In June a conference will celebrate its 40th anniversary.

Rufus was the son of an entrepreneur of Dutch-German extraction born in 1881 and his much younger Finnish wife, a medical student stranded in London at the outbreak of the second world war. Rufus was educated at Brighton College and then studied painting at St Martin's College of Art and at Kingston College of Art. He lived in North Wales for a period before returning to London in May 1967.

Rufus and Caroline, also an "art school dropout", met on June 30 that year at a demonstration in Fleet Street protesting against the role of the News of the World in a prosecution of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, both of whom had been sentenced to imprisonment for minor drugs offences following a complaint to the police by the newspaper. In the trial, Michael Havers QC, later attorney general, accused the paper of using an agent provocateur.

Over the next two weeks, Rufus and Caroline attended several meetings called by the Black Power leader known as "Michael X" (Michael Abdul Malik or Michael de Freitas) and the American record producer Joe Boyd, who was the proprietor of an underground club in Tottenham Court Road called UFO. Boyd's partner, John Hopkins ("Hoppy"), had been sent to prison on June 1 for cannabis offences. The aim of the meetings was to form an organisation for drug users modelled on a group called Defence, representing black people, formed by Michael and the writer Colin McInness. McInness thought the plan over-ambitious and stormed out.

At one of the meetings, Boyd called for a name for the organisation. There was a long pause and then the tension was broken when Caroline called out "Release". Release was her baby and Rufus was the midwife. There was a small sum of money available to kick-start the organisation, contributed by the folk-singer Julie Felix to Hoppy's legal defence fund.

To begin with, the aim of Release was to provide bail services to people arrested for drugs offences and to refer them to solicitors. A 24-hour telephone help line was set up and run by volunteers. Caroline was the fundraiser and spokesperson for the organisation and Rufus was the administrator. By the end of 1967 Release was based in an office at 50 Princedale Road, Holland Park.

A number of lawyers took referrals from Release. The first of these was Martin Polden; the others who worked with Release in its early days included Desmond Banks, David Offenbach, Bernie Simons, Dennis Muirhead and David Pedley. The lawyers instructed by Rufus did not apologise for their clients. However, their dealings with the police and courts went a long way to calm down the legal process. Caroline has described Rufus's ability to disarm hostile police officers, who would charge into Release in a threatening mode: after a few minutes' conversation he would lead them down the road to the Prince of Wales for a drink.

In 1969 Rufus and Caroline summarised their early work in The Release Report on Drug Offenders and the Law, published by Sphere Books.

Together with Caroline, Jeff Dexter and others, Rufus launched a series of pop concerts on Sundays at the Round House, north London, called Implosion, which replaced the UFO and Middle Earth clubs but operated strictly as a charity to support the "alternative society". Implosion ran from June 1969 to October 1973.

Rufus never received the credit he deserved for his collaboration with HM Inspector of Constabulary Frank Williamson in his investigation of corruption within the Metropolitan Police in the years from 1969 to 1972, summarised in the book, The Fall of Scotland Yard by Martin Short, John Shirley and Barry Cox (Penguin, 1977). For a time Williamson worked from an office at Release, and Rufus himself conducted interviews on behalf of Williamson. The investigation met with obstruction from the "firm in a firm" but it led to the imprisonment of corrupt officers and had a major add-on effect in the subsequent regime of Sir Robert Mark, who became head of the Metropolitan Police in 1972.

From 1967 onwards, Rufus maintained a contact with the legendary head of the Home Office Drugs Inspectorate, HB "Bing" Spear, who was at the centre of all progressive developments in the field. Rufus was an honours graduate of what Arnold Trebach, founder of the Drug Policy Foundation, called the "Bing Spear University". He remained in contact with Spear long after he left Release and after Spear retired from the Home Office.

From the late 1970s Rufus continued to advise Release and to serve as a trustee of the Princedale Trust. He worked as a lawyer, preparing cases and interviewing clients for solicitors Fisher-Meredith and Desmond Banks. He also held court and conducted a surgery in the evenings at the Prince of Wales. He tried his hand at one or two other activities, running a minicab firm and an art publishing venture with Julia Stonehouse, but these did not come to anything.

At the end of the 1980s Rufus sold the house in which he had lived with his mother in Ladbroke Grove. They settled in the Isle of Wight and then moved to Brighton, where Rufus continued his legal work. His last years were difficult because he was incapacitated for 18 months after being run over by a hit-and-run driver. He was then diagnosed with throat cancer. He faced this final ordeal with courage and optimism.

It is difficult to do justice to the selfless and tireless dedication of Rufus Harris to his clients, colleagues and friends.

He is survived by his daughter Jessica Langton and his sister Zoe Smith.

· Rufus Happy Jukuri Harris, drug offences campaigner, born March 20 1946; died April 7 2007