No cross cheque for legal aid

Who says legal aid doesn't pay? The Legal Services Commission, that's who.

That ever-impressive bureaucracy has churned out another of its occasional masterpieces - in this case, a cheque to Stoke-on-Trent firm Wilkins & Thompson Park Thornton for the princely sum of no pounds and no pence.

Still, it's the kind of cheque that finance director GJA Whelan must be happy to have his signature reproduced on.