Law and Peace (18 page)

Year 2 (week 23): Cloak and dagger

 

Well, despite the fact that I was beginning to feel a little sceptical the more I thought about it, WhistleBlower did actually turn up last night. Although when I arrived at Chancery Lane at 7 p.m. as agreed, I saw no one. Then, just to add to the whole sense of intrigue, someone pulled down the window of a black cab and shouted to me to get in. There was no red umbrella and
she
was certainly not a man, but I figured she must be who I was supposed to meet because who else would possibly be looking for me there at that particular time? Once in, I got my first chance to see who exactly this WhistleBlower was. She was probably in her late forties and looked particularly stressed, which I guess added a whiff of authenticity to the proceedings.

‘I'm afraid I can't give you my name,' she said, after I'd shaken her hand and introduced myself, feeling peculiarly English and formal.

‘I do understand,' I replied. ‘But why have you contacted me?'

‘I simply won't be able to live with myself unless I hand this information to someone involved in the case.' She sighed. ‘You see, my mother has Alzheimer's and if this mobile phone technology is in any way causing even a small amount of the same type of suffering to anyone else and their family, then I think people should know.'

‘Well, quite,' I replied. ‘That's the whole point of our case. But what information is it that you have exactly?'

‘I have this,' with which she produced what I was slightly disappointed to note was a white, rather than a brown, envelope. Brown envelopes being de rigueur
for these kinds of situation, or so I thought.

I took it and then pressed a little further. ‘Will the contents make sense to someone who doesn't work for the company?'

‘They should do,' she replied. ‘But here. If you really don't get it, you can contact me on this email address.' She handed me a piece of paper with an anonymous email address printed on it.

She then stopped the cab and I was put back on to the street, more than a little thrown by the whole weird nature of the meeting. After that, I had to go to an Inner Temple dinner followed by a case this morning and so I haven't yet had a chance to read the papers she gave me. Slippery has been hounding me on the phone all day and we've agreed to meet this evening to go through the contents over a drink.

 

 

Wednesday 5 March 2008

Year 2 (week 23): Bombshell

 

After meeting up with Slippery and getting to grips with WhistleBlower's material, and then staying up half the night sifting through it in more detail, I really do think we might be getting somewhere. She's basically given us a bunch of accounts that show payments to a number of companies around the world. In themselves they wouldn't have meant a great deal were it not for a memo that accompanied them which suggested that these monies were ultimately reaching certain supposedly independent experts who have completed various supposedly independent reports on the safety of their particular mobile masts. Worse than that, there is another memo that explains how one of these experts had originally submitted a report suggesting that the technology was dangerous, only to ‘change his mind' on the issue after the payments were made.

As you can imagine if I was able to prove any of this then it would be a bombshell. Not only would it show that the telecom company were potentially bribing the experts but it would also show that they were aware of the possible dangers of the technology and failing to warn people about it.

With the trial imminent and OldSmoothie approaching matters in his usual languid way, I've now got to track down further evidence to back up Whistleblower's claims and so I have enlisted the help of TheBoss (I know that Claire would disapprove, but needs must is what I'm telling myself). I've also got to consider how I would then use this evidence in the case itself.

 

 

Thursday 6 March 2008

Year 2 (week 23): Spending a penny

 

With the new evidence from WhistleBlower and the cases starting to get themselves into order, today was the day we needed to get everyone together for a case conference with two of the main Moldy clients we think are clean: the delightful Arthur and Ethel. In other words clients who we at least hope don't have any connections with the other side. That meant that OldSmoothie, myself and TheVamp – representing the Bar – and SlipperySlope, NurserySlope, ClichéClanger and four other people – representing the other half of the profession – were all in the same room with our clients. That made ten lawyers billing out an average of perhaps £400 an hour which brought the total bill to some £4,000 an hour. Oh, and when you add VAT and then a 100 per cent uplift if we win the case, the costs were not far short of ten grand an hour. Or as Slippery pointed out this morning as we waited for the clients, ‘That's more than one hundred and fifty pounds a minute. Time to make hay, BabyB! Chat about the weather: one grand. Football, another. Controversial celebrity topics should bring double. Oh, and don't forget to pause and enjoy the most expensive coffee and biscuits on the planet.'

Bearing all that in mind, I felt pretty guilty at the end of the conference when the effects of last night's curry meant I needed to slip out to the loo. I deliberately departed discreetly since I knew I might be, as they say, some time. And when I eventually emerged, around half an hour later, to find the whole conference waiting for me, I was mortified.

‘I hope you don't mind that we waited whilst you spent a penny,' said Ethel. ‘I just wanted to thank you personally for all your hard work'.

Which led to much guffawing after they left.

‘Spending a penny,' chuckled SlipperySlope.

‘More like half a million pennies,' said OldSmoothie.

 

 

Friday 7 March 2008

Year 2 (week 23): Paper trail

 

Had a meeting with TheBoss today. He's been researching the issues raised by the documents that WhistleBlower handed over.

‘With the help of a few backhanders, I've already managed to complete the paper trail back to a couple of the experts. Should be enough to cross-examine on at least,' he said.

‘And what about the original experts' report, the one that said that the effects of the masts
are
damaging?'

‘No sign of it yet.'

This was pretty crucial and we both paused. Then he said, ‘The person who would really be able to help is WhistleBlower herself. I haven't managed to track her down yet but I'm going to give it a try via the email she gave you.'

 

 

Monday 10 March 2008

Year 2 (week 24): OldWorrier

 

Boy oh boy, if you thought Worrier sounded exhausting, she's got nothing on my opponent today who I'll call OldWorrier. He was about sixty and said he'd been practising for about fifteen years. I found this out when he first called me up last week ‘to discuss the case'. Well, given that it was a standard car case worth all of around £2,000 I certainly didn't expect to see the papers until late afternoon the day before and that would be if I was lucky. I told him this and he seemed much put out and then went on to lecture me about the merits of his own case for about an hour, constantly asking me what I thought. Well, what I thought was that he sounded more like a litigant in person than a barrister and so I looked him up and discovered that he was in fact a ‘head of chambers'. This seemed even more peculiar until I then found out that he was the only member of this chambers and that they appeared to be run from his bedsit in Brockley.

This was all a bit odd, but nothing like as strange as his performance in court. You know, it's a peculiar thing about the Bar that we are rarely assessed in court by anyone other than our opponents and the judge. Most of the time this doesn't matter, but on occasions such as today you realise that it can allow the odd rogue to slip through the net. For neither OldWorrier nor his client seemed in the slightest bit conscious of the fact that he lost an easy case due to complete and utter incompetence. Without boring you with the facts, if he'd asked my client even the most basic of questions he would have discovered that our case was hopeless. Instead he simply harangued him with his terrible arguments. Even the judge was biting his lip in embarrassment. But you see, unless the client realises his barrister's hopeless, no one else is going to report him and so OldWorrier will have collected his brief fee and moved on to his next unknowing victim.

As lawyers would be the first to tell you: buyer beware!

 

 

Tuesday 11 March 2008

Year 2 (week 24): Local justice

 

I've often heard about a certain eccentric magistrate who doles out his own form of justice through imaginative forms of community service based mainly around the courthouse. But until this afternoon I'd never seen it first hand. As I approached the court building, I saw three young men in hoodies climbing ladders perched against the wall and asked the security guard at the entrance what was going on.

‘Oh they're just a couple of His Worship's new window cleaners,' came back the answer.

Then as I entered the building itself, I saw three more hoodies cleaning the floor. I looked back at the security guard as if to repeat my question and he raised his eyebrows with a knowing smile and nodded as if to say, ‘Three more of His Worship's cleaners.' As I entered the robing room, another hoodie asked if he could take my coat and after I passed it to him a little suspiciously, he took it and put it on the stand. Then another appeared out of nowhere and asked if I'd like a cup of coffee or tea before I made my appearance. Two more of His Worship's workers, no doubt.

This was all before I entered the courtroom itself, which was quite a spectacle. There were two hoodies in each of the four corners of the room, each standing stock still with their hands on their heads. They were clearly naughty boys who had been put in their respective naughty corners. But best of all were the two young men in hoodies standing on either side of the stipendiary magistrate, wielding huge bamboo fans, as well as another who was holding a silver platter with a jug full of iced water ready to refill his glass. Now let me be clear: it was a warm day for March at least and what's more, courtrooms are notoriously stuffy places at the best of times (in all senses of the word). But even so, it left him looking like a strange cross between a Roman emperor, a kind of Mr Kurz figure lazing around in the jungle bellowing out orders to the locals and Ricky Gervais bossing around his minions in
The Office
.

I was there with TheVamp and we were representing two of our Moldy clients in further prosecutions following on from their alleged anti-social behaviour. I say alleged but actually both of our clients admitted everything that was being put to them. In TheVamp's case that meant that eighty-two-year-old Tony admitted to regularly playing his electric guitar at full volume in his back garden at 3 a.m. In my case, the sprightly seventy-nine-year-old Dora was trying to sign people up on the main street in the middle of the day to help her undertake a heist on one of the local banks (though she'd never actually got around to undertaking the audacious robbery itself).

When TheVamp and I went to meet our clients, they were sitting with Arthur and Ethel. Ethel gave me a beaming smile whilst Arthur gave me a double thumbs up and a mischievous grin. They looked particularly animated and as we approached Arthur said, ‘We'd like to start putting our bad behaviour to good use if that's OK, BabyB?'

Tony and Dora both nodded as if this was something that had already been discussed between themselves.

‘What were you thinking?' I asked.

‘Well, we want to be ordered to become litter-picking martyrs if that's alright with you, BabyB?' said my client Dora. ‘If we're going to have to take any form of punishment then we might as well do something useful.'

Much nodding of old heads and then Arthur produced two luminous gillets for our clients to wear. One was emblazoned with ‘Tony the Trash' and the other with ‘Dora the Dustwoman'. They all smiled and TheVamp shrugged as if to say, ‘no problem' on her account. So it was that the first of the Moldy Martyrs Litter-Picking Collective was born, with the magistrate ordering that they start with the courthouse and grounds and then move on to the high street after that.

 

 

Wednesday 12 March 2008

Year 2 (week 24): OldFilth

 

My opponent opened his case today with the following words, ‘This is an appeal from a judgment of His Honour Judge . . .'

I won't mention his real name but suffice it to say that his nickname is OldFilth and that it has nothing to do with ‘failing in London and trying Hong Kong'. It arises instead from the fact that he spends more time chasing the fairer sex than he does considering his cases. Such is his reputation that there are, allegedly, only three female QCs at the family law Bar who have not at least been propositioned by him in one form or another (a survey was once unofficially carried out at a Family Law Bar Association drinks party). ‘Viagravation' they call it apparently. Anyway, let's just say that his judgments are not held in the highest regard and as soon as the judge heard that it was an appeal from one of OldFilth's cases, he was immediately able to throw out the apocryphal line, ‘Yes, yes, and what are the other grounds of appeal?'