John Beckett (lawyer)

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For other persons named John Beckett, see John Beckett (disambiguation).

John Beckett, QC, is a Scottish lawyer and former Solicitor General for Scotland.

Beckett was educated at the University of Edinburgh. He was elected to the Faculty of Advocates in 1993.

He was on the defence team for Abdel Basset Ali al-Megrahi during the Lockerbie trial at the Scottish Court in the Netherlands.

He has served as an Advocate Depute and a Senior Advocate Depute since 2003. He took Silk in 2005. He was appointed Principal Advocate Depute from 1 January 2006.

Following the resignation of Colin Boyd as Lord Advocate, Elish Angiolini the Solicitor General for Scotland was nominated by the First Minister of Scotland to succeed him in that post. Beckett was in turn nominated to succeed Angiolini as Solicitor General. The Scottish Parliament approved the nominations on 5 October 2006. Beckett, along with Angiolini, were sworn in at the Court of Session in Edinburgh on 12 October 2006 and appointed by the Queen under the royal warrant ^[1]. On 24 May 2007 his replacement by Frank Mulholland QC was approved by the Scottish Parliament.