Editors enjoy kickabout with real and political footballs

Whether it was dead secretaries, allegedly dodgy footballers or attacks on political correctness, this week the legal world was something of a tabloid news editors...Whether it was dead secretaries, allegedly dodgy footballers or attacks on political correctness, this week the legal world was something of a tabloid news editors dream.The prize for most column inches went to Peter McCormick, a solicitor and director at Leeds United Football Club who, it was alleged in court this week, advised footballer Michael Duberry to stick to his story when questioned by the police about a vicious attack on an Asian student.Mr Duberry told the court that he had lied about the circumstances of the attack to protect his friend, fellow Leeds player Jonathan Woodgate, who is also on trial along with team mate Lee Bowyer.

Mr Duberry described how Mr McCormick advised him to stick to his story and mentioned the word perjury.

Mr Duberry saw another solicitor who started talking some legal talk and said if I changed my story I would be done for perjury.

He started talking about jail and it scared me (The Daily Telegraph, 22 March).

The story, which made the front pages of most nationals, took another dramatic twist when, under cross-examination, Mr Duberry was accused of changing his story in order to claim Mr Woodgate's place in the first team, or to collect a percentage of any transfer fee if the club was forced to sell him (Daily Express, 22 March).

From alleged grievous bodily harm to cyber-hoaxing, and lawyers at a leading City firm who are now facing disciplinary action after a spoof e-mail announcing the murder of a young secretary was circulated to staff and clients (Independent, 22 March).

Trainees at Herbert Smiths Hong Kong and London office are said to have sent an e-mail to 1,700 staff and clients, purporting to be from the personnel department, telling of the murder of secretary Natalie Francisco and giving the name of her replacement.

Herbert Smiths executive partner Tim Parkes, apparently a master of understatement, acknowledged it was rather a silly thing to do; however, proving that lawyers are not the cold-hearted beasts often depicted, one London-based lawyer charmingly responded with I hope you signed her leaving card (The Independent, 22 March).To more serious matters, and one of Britains most senior judges marked his retirement by attacking a cloud of political correctness in the courts (The Daily Telegraph, 22 March) and the meddling of officials working for Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine (Daily Mail, 22 March).

Judge Neil Denison, the Common Serjeant of London, and the second most senior judge at the Old Bailey, said he had peered into the future and did not like what he saw (The Daily Telegraph, 22 March), namely a criminal justice system used as a political football and the sinister erosion of free speech.

The self-confessed dinosaur said he saw a court service with ever increasing levels of administration, and a head office in the shape of the constantly expanding Lord Chancellors Department, with whole sections whose only raison detre is the collation and distribution of statistics to other sections (The Guardian, 22 March).Judge Denison, therefore, might approve of Tony Blairs plans for the creation of a ministry of justice in a big shake-up of Whitehall departments if Labour wins the general election (The Independent, 20 March).

This move would spark a debate over the role of the Lord Chancellor, who could lose one of his three roles as speaker of the Lords, head of the judiciary and a senior cabinet minister.

The move would also mean that Jack Straw would lose large parts of his Home Office empire to the new department, while a few would move to other Whitehall departments (The Times, 26 March).

The Times perceptively observes that this would provoke turf wars in Whitehall, with Mr Straw understood to be opposed to the responsibility for criminal justice being moved to a justice department.And finally, spare a thought for poor old Derry Irvine, much maligned in these and other pages.

Marcel Berlins in The Guardian (20 March) reports on the Lord Chancellors new role at Londons Royal Holloway College his job, according to the newsletter announcing it, is to be the final authority to which disputes between students and the college are referred.

As The Guardian tactfully points out, as judicial appointments go, its not quite what hes used to, but even Lord Chancellors have to take what they can get these days.Victoria MacCallum