I had only spoken to Charlie Parkman twice in my ten years in chambers, once at a chambers drinks do to commemorate the appointment of Tim Belton to Silk and another time when I happened across him in the chambers kitchen making coffee. I think on the first occasion he made a few polite comments about chambers doing very well; and on the second, he mentioned how he was resisting the urge to have a chocolate HobNob, because he was putting weight on, which precipitated a brief conversation about the merits of HobNobs as opposed to Gingers or Chocolate Digestives.
He wasn’t one of those barristers who immediately demanded attention when he entered a room.
There were stories about him and not all of them were good.
As soon as I’d been given permission to instruct leading Counsel, I arranged for us to meet in chambers library.
I was nervous. I sent him copies of all the papers in the case together with my typed-up notes from the conference with Tasha and some of my own thoughts about tactics for the trial.
Before our scheduled meeting, I ventured into the chambers common room, which is a sort of communal area, ostensibly for barristers to meet and have a chat, though in reality it has become a dumping ground for old briefs and out-of-date law books.
To my surprise, sitting there quietly reading the newspaper was Edward Grieve. Eddie Grieve is our most senior Chancery and Civil barrister. Rumour has it that he is the top earner in chambers and has refused to take Silk or a judicial appointment because he’s earning more as a junior barrister. He’s also a very nice guy, the type of bloke who overflows with helpful wisdom.
He looked up when I entered the room and greeted me warmly.
‘Ah, young Mr Winnock,’ he said, ‘what are you up to?’
‘I’m meeting Charlie Parkman,’ I told him. ‘He’s going to lead me in a case.’
‘Oh, I didn’t realise you did family work.’
‘No, it’s a criminal case,’ I told him and watched as Eddie’s expression turned from one of surprise to one of interest.
‘How well do you know Charlie?’ he asked me, his eyes scrunching slightly in contemplation.
‘Not well at all.’
‘Do you know about the case of Mark Griffin?’
‘No,’ I said, though the name rang a quiet bell somewhere in the part of my brain that stored the stuff I’d learned at Law School.
Eddie continued, ‘Charlie was a brilliant junior, you know,’ he said, ‘he was a Silk after fifteen years call, he couldn’t have been much more than about 38.’
‘Gosh.’
‘He did a lot of crime then: prosecution and defence.’
I nodded.
‘He was junior in the case involving the maid who’d been stealing from the Queen.’
Again, another faint bell rang, this time from my childhood.
‘Then, not long into Silk, he was instructed in a case involving a dispute over the turning off of a life support machine for a young lad who’d been in a car accident. The boy was only thirteen. Terrible business. He was diagnosed as being in a vegetative state.
‘The mum wanted to keep the life support machine on, the dad wanted to turn it off. Charlie was for the dad. Alan Harper was for the mother, or Mr Justice Harper as he now is.’
I nodded again.
‘Harper, as you know, is a brilliant lawyer. He used everything he could to persuade the court to keep the machine on. They spent about a month arguing before the High Court, a month in which Charlie was arguing just as vociferously in favour of bringing to an end the life of a thirteen-year-old boy.’
‘Did he win?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ said Eddie, ‘he won and the life support machine was turned off, but Charlie was never really the same again. He stopped doing any criminal cases, stopped doing cases involving children, and has, as far as I know, spent the last twenty years doing high-end divorces.’
‘So why change now?’ I asked. ‘I don’t really get it.’
Eddie shrugged. ‘Perhaps he feels stronger, perhaps he needs a new challenge, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s about the money though, he’d get far more for his divorce work than he would for a legal aid case. What is your case about?’
‘Murder,’ I said, ‘and the Crown have got Roger Fish, and he’s slippery, clever and battle-hardened. I don’t want to lose.’
Eddie pondered this. ‘Well, my advice is to trust him and help him as best you can, because he might just come up trumps for you.’
‘Thanks.’
Somehow this story made me feel more confident about my leader.
A little while later I went into the library for our meeting. Charlie Parkman was already sitting at the table. He was a slight man of about 60, who was well served by his still dark and thick hair, which gave the impression he was about ten years younger than he was. Spread out on the table in front of him were the papers in the case of R v Roux. Behind him were the packed library shelves containing the dark and brooding law books that have been collected by chambers for over a hundred years: the All-England Law Reports, the Weekly Law Reports, the Legal Review, Halsbury’s Laws. These books contain words written by long-dead Judges and politicians; the judgements of Lord Denning, Lord Lane, Lord Upjohn and numerous forgotten Masters of the Rolls; the Acts drafted by Privy Counsellors and Government Ministers. The brains who decided the cases and drafted the statutes which frame all of our lives, tell us what we can and can’t do; the words that determine the parameters of our relations with our fellow citizens – written down and recorded in these dusty books is the law.
And sitting quietly in front of them was the man who had argued every day for a month that, in law, a dying boy’s life should be ended. I felt the massive weight of all their words and the ghosts of the men who had written them.
How would I have coped with such an argument?
Could I have done it? Just put my wig on and taken a side in a dispute in which neither side would ever be happy with the outcome? I wasn’t sure.
But I was sure that a case as tragic as that of Mark Griffin gave Charlie Parkman a humanity that I liked.
He stood up when I entered and shook me warmly by the hand. ‘Ah Russell,’ he said, ‘how nice to see you again.’
For a brief moment I was confused, I didn’t know whether to shake his hand or not. You see, barristers don’t normally shake hands, we are supposed to trust one another implicitly without the need to shake hands. Parkman’s gesture, though, was natural, instinctive and warm. I grasped his proffered hand and shook it firmly.
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘brilliant. What do you think about the case then?’
‘Well,’ he said, ‘first, I’m delighted that you’ve asked me to lead you.’
‘Pleasure.’ Obviously, I didn’t tell him that I didn’t so much as select him as have him selected for me.
‘I know you’ll be concerned that I haven’t done a great deal of crime in the last few years.’
‘No,’ I lied, ‘I’m not bothered at all.’ Then added, ‘What do they say about footballers – form is temporary, class is permanent.’
As soon as I said it, I realised I’d taken the rule about telling your leader how good they are to an Olympic level of sycophancy within the first five minutes of meeting him. Charlie looked embarrassed. ‘I’m not sure about that,’ he said, and we both cringed silently for a couple of seconds.
After that, and for the next twenty minutes, we sat there in the library talking about the case. He spoke in an informed way about the law and the evidence and how he proposed to deal with each of the witnesses. He was impressive.
I watched and nodded and chipped in with my own views when they were invited. I noticed that he had small nimble hands that moved around his papers with a strategic expertise.
‘This Dickinson sounds like a real piece of work,’ he said, ‘and I agree with you that our problem is the Irishman who says he saw Miss Roux run towards Dickinson. My view,’ he continued, ‘is that we have to cast as much doubt as we can on that evidence, whilst painting a picture of our girl as a victim. We want to make it as easy as we can for the jury to acquit her.’
I nodded, I was becoming increasingly excited by the presence of my leader.
‘You say that Tasha told you that he may have been seeing other women?’
‘Yes,’ I said, ‘she was very clear about that.’
‘I wonder what they think about this? I wonder if he was doing to them the type of things he was doing to Miss Roux?’
I nodded as Charlie smiled at me. ‘I can’t see any harm in tracking one or two of these girls down, what do you think?’
‘Yes,’ I said, effusively, ‘absolutely.’
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘well, can I leave that to you?’
‘Absolutely,’ I repeated, ‘leave that to me.’
‘Great.’
We agreed to visit Tasha together, and to meet again in a week or so. I left the library enthused and excited. I walked away from the law books, I walked away from the dusty ghosts of Judges and politicians, and went back into the real world.
I was pleased with Charlie Parkman QC. Of course, I was yet to see how he was in court, but I realised that he cared about his clients and that he would come to care about Tasha and that was good enough for me.