Beating the bottle

James Morton looks at the case of an Australian judge that brings the work of lawcare into focus and examines the idea of immunity for supergrasses

One of the stories entertaining the Australian legal profession and public last autumn was that of Sydney-based judge Jeff Shaw, who was allegedly given both his own and the police samples of his blood by the hospital that tested him. The judge was on his way home after dinner when he crashed his car in the early hours of the morning.

On 21 January, he faces charges of excess alcohol and negligent driving. The drink-drive charge carries a maximum of 27 months in jail and both carry a maximum of three years’ disqualification. It is interesting that the dinner party gossip has it there will be no way he will go to prison if he is convicted of driving four-and-a-half times over the limit. I don't suppose a judge would here either. Mr Smith from Brixton or Mr Patel from Brick Lane might.


I mention the judge because only a week or so earlier I had seen the LawCare stand at a legal conference in UK. It carried the horrific news that the incidence of cirrhosis among British lawyers is several times that in the public at large.


In what might be called a knee- jerk reaction, I immediately reached to press where I believe my liver to be. I am not sure since my school biology lessons ended after several of us were dismissed from the class for laughing when the master said a retort had a bottom (or the other way around).


Talking with those on the stand, I was told that as a rule colleagues often know there is something wrong with the alcoholic partner or assistant but are reluctant to blow the whistle. If Australian press reports are to be believed, the same seems to have been true with the defaulting Aussie judge.


LawCare, whose range extends to dealing not only with substance abuse, but also the depressed and stressed and those with eating disorders, promises a confidential service and is available to lawyers, staff and their families. If appropriate, support will come from a fellow lawyer who has been through the mill and recovered. It is seriously in need of volunteers, whose names are kept confidential

The suggestion last November in The Daily Telegraph that there should be a written immunity for supergrasses is another of those good ideas in theory, if not in practice. The attraction for the supergrass is the reduction in a prison sentence. Whether the long-term benefits are as attractive are another matter.



It was all very well in the 1970s and 1980s for small-beer crooks to grass up their fellow bank robbers. They were loosely knit groups. It will be quite another matter to give evidence against the so-called godfathers. The witness protection scheme for the family will be a necessity, and whereas the old-fashioned bank robber had spent the takings by the end of a Friday night in the long-closed Astor Club, today’s major criminal has much more in the way of financial and other resources at his disposal.


There have also been a string of witnesses who have fallen foul of the protection programme and as a result have been left on their own and at risk from reprisals. ‘You can put me in jail,’ said a potential witness of the murder of Alphonse Muratore in Melbourne in August 1992, ‘but they can give me the death sentence.’ It may prove to be an interesting equation for those involved

A story I had not heard before reaches me about Reggie Seaton, chairman of the old Inner London Quarter Sessions. He was dealing with an old lag up for sentence for burglary. A fairly impressive array of witnesses were produced to say the burglar had now seen the light, and the last was a woman who ran some sort of hostel and who was prepared to offer the man lodging and pocket money if he emptied her dustbins. There was naturally a good probation report which said that the man had never had the benefit of this disposition. Mr Seaton said he was very impressed. ‘It is true you have never had probation and I have listened carefully to the witnesses who say you have reformed. I have been particularly impressed with the lady who says she will give you a job.’ The lag straightened up. ‘Indeed she seems such a pleasant lady that I am perfectly sure she won’t mind waiting four years before you begin to work for her.’

There is something to be said for having a positive lawyer on one’s side. I wonder whether we haven’t become lily-livered about how we present our clients’ cases to the media. Here is US lawyer Shawn Smith setting out his stall for a client who was charged with assault, which allegedly started a brawl at a professional basketball match between players from the Indiana Pacers and Detroit Pistons fans. Explaining his client would plead not guilty, he added: ‘We’re going to fight until blood comes out of our eyes. We are going to stop at nothing.’

I see a man accused of rape disappeared while the jury had retired to convict him, so causing further trauma to his victim who had undergone a lengthy cross-examination. Years ago, there was an unwritten rule that when a custodial sentence was probable on conviction, people previously on bail would be remanded in custody after they had given evidence and before the summing-up. Of course in those days a summing-up did not take several days and juries did not retire for several more. But it is a thought.

James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist