Five years after leaving Bermuda to get to a place which is ?more open and less developed?, English judge Richard Ground is now set to return.

The skilled amateur wildlife photographer left the Island in 1998 after six years as a judge here where he presided over the billion dollar Emlico case ? over whether a giant captive insurance company declared insolvent should have been allowed to shift its legal base to Bermuda just months before the insolvency application was made ? and the marathon Bank of Bermuda fraud trial as likely to stick in his memory for ?length and complexity?.

Mr. Justice Ground, who dealt mostly with commercial and civil cases when in Bermuda, has held a variety of positions across the Caribbean since moving out from the UK in 1983, including Attorney General and Senior Crown counsel in the Cayman Islands. The 53-year-old, graduated from Oxford University in English Language and Literature before opting for a career in the law, declining to follow a career in journalism.

Among his wide list of legal publications is a book of photographs of wildlife in the Caymans, while his hobbies include an interest in Renaissance and medieval coins.

In returning he will be reunited with a permanent photographic reminder of his time in Bermuda ? photographs taken were used in a Bermuda Aquarium biodiversity project and published in a special book.

He clearly has a love for Bermuda, telling at the time of his departure: ?I?ve enjoyed it here very much indeed. It?s a very congenial place to live and there has been much to do and the work has been very challenging.

?A lot of the work grows out of the insurance and reinsurance companies and it?s often international.

?There are very difficult points of law which have not been decided anywhere else and that what judges like ? to break new ground in intellectually difficult areas of the law.?