Chuting star falls

Obiter devotees will know just how obsessed solicitors from the Hampshire Law Society are with making a big splash at national Law Society annual conferences.

In aid of the Solicitors Benevolent Association (SBA), they have driven London taxis to Disneyland in France and paddled up canals in canoes to Birmingham.

This year, as we reported (see [2002] Gazette, 5 September, 10), a mob from the county planned a daredevil parachute jump over somewhere in Lancashire for this year's national conference in Manchester.

Whether they will be quite so keen next year is another matter after the experience of Nick Gurney-Champion, the Hampshire society's president.

Mr Gurney-Champion was first out at 3,500 feet and hurtling towards the ground at 120mph when his chute failed to open.

To put it mildly, he must have cursed ever having been introduced to the SBA.

Fortunately, the reserve chute performed without a hitch and Hampshire was not deprived of one of its finest legal minds.

However, it is debatable whether Mr Gurney-Champion will be parachuting again.