Takes One to Know One.
An absolutely barking quietly eccentric neighbour of mine was going home one day when he spied a baby buzzard sitting by the roadside. He thought he’d take it home with him; as you do. Once at home, he had great enjoyment out of training it to fly back to him for the reward of a piece of chicken liver. So proud was he of his achievement, that when his solicitor invited him out to lunch to discuss some skullduggery entirely innocent caper that he’d unfortunately naively become involved in, he took the bird with him in a cardboard box.
There it sat quietly as they perused the menu in one of our famed local gastronomic restaurants (when you are a wealthy client, solicitors round here do invite you to lunch – and expect you to pay!). The other side of the restaurant, two clients were watching and quietly drooling as the waiter approached their table with a covered silver salver. With great fanfare, the waiter lifted the lid and lowered the dish, the better that his clients could appreciate the thinly sliced Fois Gras, interspersed with truffles, that they had planned to consume.
OK, it wasn’t chicken liver, but chicken, schmicken, goose, schmose, it’s all the same to a hungry Buzzard. He flapped his mighty wings and swooped low across the restaurant, scattering wine and customers alight; collected the Fois Gras between his talons and settled on the corner of the buffet to chomp his way merrily through it.
How was he to know that the Fois Gras owners were two senior policemen, or come to that, anything to do with the French legislation preventing possession of wild birds?
Which is how my neighbour and his solicitor came to share a cell for the next 18 hours, and eventually share a criminal record and an entirely reasonable bill for 3,000 euros for possession of said wild bird, and damage caused thereby.
I was reminded of this totally useless shaggy dog bird tale, when I read of the trials and tribulations of Darrell Littlewood, former owner of Scarborough Football Club. When Scarborough Football Club, ahem, failed to make any money, our Darrell thought up a new venture. Charging people to find out if they were paying too much council tax.
In the first prosecution of its type in the country, 45-year-old Littlewood, now of Dewsbury, admitted 14 charges involving 12 complainants, five of whom were too elderly or infirm to attend the court hearing.
Bradford Crown Court heard that Henry’s firm had sent out misleading flyers, failed to make applications on behalf of clients and had not made refunds to people who had cancelled their contracts within a seven-day “cooling-off” period.
Serious stuff. It demands a top flight barrister. The sort of man trusted to prosecute in serious fraud committed by bank managers. The sort of man who might prosecute in cases involving Premier League Footballers. A “Premier League” barrister indeed. The sort of man who is highly thought of by the Jewish community.
What could go wrong? Well, you could end up with your trial being delayed whilst this paragon of virtue who is supposed to be defending you gets banged up himself for defrauding his chambers of £81,000.
Then you could get even more unwelcome publicity whilst questions were asked in parliament on Tuesday as to how come convicted criminals are allowed to act as officers of the court.
Mr Mulholland said: “I was astonished when I found that a barrister had been allowed to carry on defending people having been convicted of a serious criminal offence. This is a ridiculous loophole that must be closed.
“The fact that [this] case was actually delayed, whilst his own barrister’s criminal case was heard, is a farce.
“Then for David Friesner to toddle back to defend Mr Henry [akaLittlewood] , as a convicted criminal himself, is just extraordinary.”
That David Friesner could quite possibly have ended up defending, or even prosecuting, in the court of Mr Justice Singh is even more ridiculous.
David Friesner
Friesner, 46, appeared on January 12 at Leeds Crown Court, where he admitted stealing £81,500 from his own chambers. He will be sentenced on February 10 when he is likely to be jailed.
At least he managed to keep his client out of the clink.
Littlewood, who had a previous conviction for failing to keep proper accounting records and a caution for fraud by false representation, was arrested in July 2010 and the judge said he had demonstrated in his police interviews his flawed understanding of the proper procedures.
Littlewood, a father-of-two, now faces a costs bill of £12,500 and he must also do 150 hours’ unpaid work.
He also has to pay back a total of £455 to three clients who were not refunded their fees after they cancelled their contracts with Council Tax Review.
This isn’t about ‘Innocent until proven guilty’ – Freisner had been proved guilty, he was awaiting sentence. The Bar Council wants shooting for letting this occur. The only thing that could have made this tale worse would be if the Judge had convictions too, tell me he didn’t……
Are there no standards left in public life? None?
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February 2, 2012 at 15:03 -
This has all happened since the last government (remember those paragons of probity?) gave oversight of barristers’ behaviour to the Bar Council – now the Bar Standards Board.
When barristers were regulated by their head of chambers and their colleagues this would never have happened, and if it had the offender would have been ‘resigned’ that day.
It’s another example of state control – creates criminals out of ordinary human beings. -
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February 2, 2012 at 15:20 -
where he admitted stealing £81,500 from his own chambers.
If that means ‘from the earnings due to other barristers’ he’s darn lucky the police got to him first, otherwise you know the first story about buzzards and liver….
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February 2, 2012 at 16:54 -
The disciplinary procedures of the Bar Standards Board takes a while – well it is by lawyers for lawyers
I’m amazed that those two flics actually knew the provisions of the criminal code about possession of wild birds, but they, like all cops know the exhaustive provisions of the Don’t Piss Me Off Act off by heart and doubtless would have made arrests for possession of a loud tie without good cause or something similar. As for arresting fellow policemen for their involvement in deporting Jews or murdering Agerians in Paris – Gallic shrug emoticon…
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February 3, 2012 at 18:55 -
BEAUTIFULLY WRITTEN BY “DENIS”
One day last September I went to Moreford to visit my old school-friend, Edward, and his wife, Jocelyn. Just between ourselves, the household is unusual. Edward is a keen taxidermist. He also keeps birds of prey and with the assistance of a buzzard brings home rabbits which Jocelyn casseroles. Lunch consisted of just such a dish. Edward (a zoologist) is wont to identify the various bones on his plate: between mouthfuls he invites one to admire a radial fossa or zygomatic arch, then elaborates its function.After lunch we repaired to what he calls his “mews” – an old barn where he keeps his birds. The smell, to which he is immune, is vile; the interior is gloomy, paved with dank stone, and recedes into half-seen stalls and cubicles which one has no desire to investigate.
Pride of place, on the front bench, as it were, was given to his latest acquisition: a harpy eagle named “Harriet”. The species, Thrasaëtus harpyia, is native to South America, and is one of the largest of all raptors, ranging as far north as Mexico, where it is known as the “winged wolf” or “lobo volante”. It has a wing-span of some two metres and feeds on fawns, sloths, foxes, and, for preference, monkeys. To avoid the dangers of the forest floor, these monkeys take to the tree canopy, where they fondly imagine themselves secure.
When first I set eyes on Harriet I confess I felt a twinge of fear. She easily dwarfs the other birds. Her somewhat owl-like facial mask and startling crest give her an expression of stern puzzlement, as if she is unable to comprehend anything which does not involve extreme violence, blood, terror, mayhem. The deep musculature of her chest, the massive flight-muscles, and above all the development of the beak, legs and talons: all create an impression of overbearing ferocity.
She is so heavy that Edward can carry her on the glove only with difficulty. Moreover, she is so highly strung that, for fear of being attacked himself, he must keep up a continuous babble of baby-talk. Nonetheless, once the hood is in place she becomes docile enough.
An outing to Petersfield Heath had been mooted. On the way there in Edward’s van (with Harriet seated on her perch in the back), the tactics for the afternoon were explained. I was to be dropped off by the recreation ground next to the Pond, while Edward, Jocelyn and Harriet continued to the other side of the heath.
Heath Pond is a pleasing expanse of water, lined for the most part by trees. It is popular with anglers and dog-walkers, is visited by the odd heron or sea-swallow, and also has a collection of rowing-boats and canoes which may be hired by the hour. To the east and north lies a golf course. On the western shore are the swings, ice-cream kiosk, a flock of noisy Canada geese, and the tame ducks which appreciate the cubes of Hovis tossed to them by children and their parents.
On Sunday afternoons the place is busy. The perimeter path has been resurfaced so that wheelchairs may use it. At intervals there are benches giving views towards War Down and the Queen Elizabeth Country Park.
I installed myself on one of these benches and removed my binoculars from their case. An old retriever, grey-muzzled and obese, limped past, preceded by its equally ancient owner on a leather lead. Further on, a spaniel was defecating on the path itself: its owners pretended not to notice and, once it had finished, called to it to catch them up. Black Labradors, and a couple of yellow ones, were in evidence: these are the essential fashion accessory sported by the sort of people who wish to be thought countryfied.
Allowing the glasses to range about, I noticed, out on the water, a hired rowing-boat being propelled by a young man in a blue top. Opposite him, at the tiller, sat a young woman in yellow. She had set a course to the far side of the Pond. Behind the rower, on a sort of plank across the bows, stood a corgi. It was drawing attention to itself by continuous barking, whether occasioned by innate neurosis or fear of the water I cannot say.
Knowing the cast of Edward’s character, I kept a special eye on this boat.
I did not have to wait long. Emerging in silence from a stand of pines, the menacing and alien shape of a gigantic bird of prey, buoyed along by broad and sweeping wing-beats, cast its speeding shadow across the surface of the lake.
I began to hear startled cries from the more observant strollers.
No more than thirty seconds elapsed before Harriet reached the boat and, barely pausing in her flight, snatched the corgi aloft.
As she gained altitude, she adjusted the disposition of her burden, even letting it go for an instant before catching it again. She may have heard the cries of astonishment and rage from below, especially from the man in the boat, who had now stood up, shaking his fist: she may have heard them, but remained indifferent, circling round to the east, a superb spectacle when seen above the trees on the southern shore.
A commotion at the recreation ground drew my notice. Mobile phones were being deployed. An attendant of some kind was being beseeched by shocked parents. Few of these, perhaps, noticed the man in the blue top losing his balance and falling into the lake, upsetting the boat and so also depositing the woman in the water.
Harriet reached the stand of pines whence she had started. Here, I supposed, her keeper was waiting. But instead of meekly yielding up the prize, she retained it. Instead of flying to the glove, she ended her flight at the top of the tallest pine.
There, on the bleached prong of a dead branch, and with one foot clamped on the dog, she looked about her. Even at that distance I detected malice in her glare. She was defiant, but also guilty. She knew her behaviour was at fault: but it was at fault only by the grubby and artificial standards of humans. Perhaps she wished to believe herself, however briefly, back in the rainforest.
Then she seemed to have second thoughts, took wing again, spilled air, and vanished into the vegetation below.
My rendezvous with Edward and Jocelyn went off as predicted, smoothly. After an irate search-party had hurried past my bench, I walked back to the roadway near the swings. As I heard a distant siren, the van came along, with a hooded Harriet once more on her perch.
During the ride back to Moreford and tea, Edward quizzed me as to what I had seen and spoke animatedly about his lifelike collection of small pedigree dogs. And as he talked, I was left to reflect on the eccentricity of some of my friends and to wonder whether my address-book could do with a little pruning.
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February 3, 2012 at 19:28
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February 3, 2012 at 19:54 -
The image of the blue & yellow tops in the water is strangely reminiscent of Blue Peter.
This is how much I care about Corgis – would it be treasonous to suggest a flight for Harriet over Buckingham House gardens?
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