Recently I met up with a very dear friend D whilst on my travels on Circuit. In the shadow of Clifford's Tower, D and I were passing the time in the newly-reduced robing room that had recently suffered the installation of a video-link booth to keep said court centre just about in the 19th century.
I say suffered for two reasons. Firstly considering all the rest of the unused space in the building (including the High Sheriff's Dining Room, current usage: 1 day per year) it was felt that the booths would do just fine upstairs, and to heck with the bespoke furniture and cramped surroundings; And secondly, due to the Grade 1 listed status of the building, the installation was a little, perhaps, limited. That is to say the booth could not touch the walls as a permanent structure, and the powers that be could not remove an ornate and ancient oak bookcase from the wall. So they simply put the free-standing booth in front of the bookcase, leaving the books on it. Ve-ry sensible.
But I digress. D was happy to share a tale of when he was being lead by a former luminary of circuit and the profession as a whole, WS QC. D and his leader were engaged in the defence of one of a team of pimps, who had allegedly been sexually and physically abusing the girls that they ran. One such allegation against D's client was that such abuse had taken place in a car next to a churchyard one evening.
Putting his case as silkily as possible, WS closed his cross-examination in the following way: "There is no issue that intercourse took place in the car that night, Miss X, but there was no unpleasantness, was there?"
To which the response came: "What are you talking about!? He knocked my front teeth out and then s****** me until I bled!"
Nodding knowingly to himself as he sat down, WS remarked, "I thought not."
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