Probably the most fearsome judge I ever saw was Melford Stevenson, writes James Morton, but there again I never saw the Lord Chief Rayner Goddard, who was reputed to begin to pick his nose when he was bored and about to dismiss an appeal. Entering court, Stevenson would stand, a Nietzsche-like figure, while counsel – some very senior – would see who could be first to rap their head on the bench in front of him in tribute. It did them little good.

A couple of divisions down the judicial hierarchy was Ewen Montagu, the man who played a great part in devising ‘The Man who Never Was’, which tricked the Germans into believing the D-Day landing would take place further up the French coast. Montagu sat at what was then Middlesex Quarter Sessions, and I remember him saying that if one client of mine, a confidence trickster known as The Major, did not take off his Guards tie (to which, naturally, he had no entitlement), he would allow the prosecution to put in his character. It was ironic that a new one had to be purchased for him at the Army and Navy stores. Defendants always wore ties in those days.

Montagu had no time for character witnesses, particularly relations. ‘Whenever a mother steps into the box I always write GBAH on my pad,’ he confided. It stood for ‘Good Boy at Home’.

If (which was often) Montagu began to get bored early in the proceedings, he did not hide it, throwing himself around the bench, gasping, sighing and exclaiming. On one occasion in 1962, he fell foul of the Court of Appeal over this behaviour, but it was apparently not bad enough for them to say the defendant had not had a fair trial. Indeed, they regarded him as having been provoked by the defendant in person [The Times, 20 June 1962].

I think the only barrister I saw get the better of Montagu was Wilfrid Fordham, who looked, spoke and dressed rather like Sydney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon. Late one afternoon, he was mitigating for a client of mine, when Montague began to shift his buttocks and sigh.

‘I hope your Lordship isn’t getting bored,’ said Wilfrid. ‘I’m trying not to’, said Montague. ‘Then I hope your Lordship will try a little harder,’ came the killer blow. I expected there to be an explosion, but none came.

James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor