Mehta rescues damsels in distress

There are a few solicitors you would not want to get into a fight with; a real fight that is.

Marcel Apfel, the fearsome bodybuilder we featured just a fortnight ago, perhaps, and most certainly the boxing barrister Alex Mehta, who runs the Freelawyer Web site.

Mr Mehta, recently crowned the world 'white collar' light-middleweight champion of the world, was on a District Line train in London late last Friday night when a man started screaming abuse and threats at two girls, apparently completely unprovoked.It being the tube, nobody looked up, let alone did anything, except for our hero, who positioned himself between the man and the girls.

'The next thing I know,' he tells Obiter, 'this nutter is yelling and screaming and threatening to kill me.

And guess what happened? Everyone ran off the tube.' Mr Mehta seemed strangely surprised by this behaviour.Having also threatened to electrocute Mr Mehta (without going into details on how he would see it through), the man threw what the boxing barrister describes as 'the most amauterish haymaker I'd seen in years'.

He slipped the punch easily enough, and the sign that he knew how to handle himself in a fight encouraged the other man to back down and flee, although happily he was apprehended by transport police and underground staff.Mr Mehta says the 'crazy thought' running through his mind was how many years he would get if he walloped the man.

'Isn't it ridiculous that I'm in the middle of protecting a couple of innocent bystanders and my overriding concern is whether I'll be criminally charged for defending myself - how rubbish is our legal system?'But it was worth it in the end.

After the rest of the passengers had got back on, one of them came up to him and said: 'Weren't you that boxer I read about in the papers?' Mr Mehta, who was featured heavily in the London Evening Standard when he won his title, modestly confirmed that he was.

Let's hope Don King takes the Standard, or indeed the Gazette, as well.