You can’t beat a good courtroom drama. So Obiter was delighted to receive a review copy of court artist Patricia Coleman’s sketches, brought together in a book with text by Evening Standard courts correspondent Paul Cheston. It includes scenes from some of Obiter’s favourite cases, from the appearance of Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas in OK! v Hello and others, to property tycoon Nicholas van Hoogstraten’s trial for murder, and Obiter’s personal favourite, the Mills-McCartney divorce (pictured), in which the Beatle’s ex-wife drenched his lawyer Fiona Shackleton with the nearest jug of water. Obiter admires the way Coleman has captured the lawyer’s unruffled response. Indeed, it emerges that the artist herself is no stranger to a good drenching. As Cheston recalls in the preface: ‘I first met Patricia when she was thrown fully clothed into a swimming pool by ITN veteran Colin Baker. Coolly she climbed out of the pool and stripped off to reveal she had had the foresight to wear a swimming costume underneath. A formidable woman I thought.’ Obiter would like to be formidable too, and has just bought a new one-piece – the only trouble is, invitations to that sort of poolside party don’t seem to be getting through.

Court Scenes is published by Wildy, Simmonds & Hill. A full review is published on the Gazette’s new online book review page.