A new front has been opened in the ongoing battle between solicitors and overzealous court security staff. Not only are lawyers routinely having digital recording devices and telephones removed from their person – with the ‘Brixton Three’ even finding themselves arrested last month for storing dictation machines and memory sticks in the wrong locker – but now, even the humble umbrella has been deemed an ‘offensive weapon’, according to Matthew Hearsum, solicitor at Morrisons in London. Hearsum said he was asked to surrender his brolly in a magistrates’ court recently. Whatever next?