Students at Queen Mary, University of London had a very different kind of law lecture last week. Instead of a session on the rule against perpetuities, they were treated to an amusing talk by former High Court judge Sir Hugh Laddie, and top-earning criminal barrister Richard Marks QC, to mark 40 years of law at the college. Both speakers had a stash of legal jokes up their sleeves. Sir Hugh doesn't pull any punches when it comes to the judiciary, but he did concede that judges can be inventive. He recalled an American criminal trial he had come across on the Internet.


'The defendant was alleged to have cut a hole in a neighbour's tent, reached in and stolen some pots and pans,' he recounted. 'His lawyer said it could not be burglary as that would require breaking and entering, and in this case the "whole person" had not entered. The judge directed the jury that there was nothing to prevent them from finding this man's right arm, head and shoulder guilty of burglary - which they duly did. The judge sentenced these body parts to five years' hard labour - but he said that as to the rest of his body, it could do what it liked.'



Mr Marks was not to be outdone - he played to his audience with a 'story about sex'. Sensitive readers may wish to turn to the next page of the Gazette, as the story involved a case of indecent exposure. The key witness was a painfully shy young woman, who described how the defendant had got out of the car and taken down his trousers. Asked by counsel what had happened next, she falteringly explained that he had taken down his pants. Further pressed, she blushingly said that she had seen his penis. 'And what are you able to say about it?' counsel asked. 'Er, nothing,' came her embarrassed reply. Counsel decided there was nothing for it but to ask a leading question. 'Did the defendant have an erection?' he inquired. 'Oh, no, sir,' she responded, relieved. 'I think it was a Cortina.'