MAN OF PRINCIPLE

The red-meat-eating killer litigators who form the top tier of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) were smacking their lips in anticipation as they filed into London's Butcher's Hall last week for their annual president's dinner.

The venue held all the promise of slabs of meat galore.

So there were a few bemused chortles when the main course of salmon was delivered, lovely though it was.

But the real laughs came during the speech by president Frances McCarthy.

She made a special point of thanking Fraser Whitehead, a leading APIL light and chairman of the Law Society's civil litigation committee.

Mr Whitehead, she reminded the diners, had contributed greatly to APIL's mission, but he had also recently played a crucial role in negotiating a peaceful end to the seige by a man claiming to have a bomb outside the Law Society's headquarters in Chancery Lane last month.

According to Ms McCarthy, Mr Whitehead 'bored' the man into giving up by giving him a breakdown of the debate over the indemnity principle.

Litigators always knew it was good for something.