Tributes have been paid to one of the legal profession’s best-known figures, the barrister and writer Sir John Mortimer, who died last week. Desmond Browne QC, chairman of the Bar Council, said: ‘Like his father, the blind advocate whom he immortalised in Voyage Round My Father, John Mortimer brought both wit and charm to his advocacy. I was proud to have been led by him in more than one libel action for Private Eye, and can testify to the astonishing industry he applied to his cases. By creating Horace Rumpole, he has ensured that he will never be forgotten by barristers anywhere in the common law world.’