Some of the best comments of my clients over the years include the enigmatic one by a wrestler-licensee who was accused of watering the beer: ‘There are many better ways to make money running a pub.’ But that does not match the remark of another wrestler against whom an affiliation order was being sought. ‘Jim,’ he said, ‘I wouldn’t have minded getting indigestion if I’d bit the apple.’
It was a bank robber who proudly told me he’d been mentioned twice in a true crime book. ‘There it is,’ he said, ‘p109 – me and Ted did the bank together.’ There was no mention on p16 of his other entry. It merely read: ‘We did the bank’. I pointed out what seemed a fatal omission. ‘I know,’ he said, ‘but I’m the “we”.’
Overall, I found my clients pretty humourless, but Ted was an exception. That or he had a great deal of chutzpah. He had a track record of appalling violence, including serving 10 years as a young man. Now, in middle age, against all odds, I obtained bail for him on a charge of murder.
Less than three weeks later, I had a call from Thames police station. ‘I’m up for armed robbery at Arbour Square tomorrow. They say I had a shotgun outside a bookmakers. I want bail.’
‘But you’re already on bail for murder.’
‘That’s a completely different sort of offence.’
It was the sort of application in which smoke signals are sent out if you knew the magistrate. ‘I make this application on the specific instructions of my client, translated as “I know, I know, but please don’t hold this against me in future”.’
Over the years, I think one of the best explanations came from a greyhound trainer. I forget what he had been charged with, but it was a question of mitigation only, and we worked out how much he could pay a week as a fine.
Week on week, there was a deficit. ‘But how do you survive?’ I asked naively. ‘Well, sir,’ he said. ‘Once a fortnight, one of them dogs runs just for me.’
James Morton is a writer and former criminal defence solicitor
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