Chapter Seventeen

Criminal Proceedings

 

Occasionally, though not very often, Mr Grimes appeared in a Criminal Court and Roger, of course, went with him. Peter always went on these occasions because, as he said, that was more in his line. On one such occasion Mr Grimes had a big conspiracy case in which he was prosecuting on behalf of a large company. Such cases always start in the Magistrate’s Court and the day before the first hearing Roger mentioned it to Henry.

‘I wonder if you’ll be before old Meadowes,’ said Henry. ‘I hope so. He’s an amusing old bird sometimes.’

‘Come on,’ said Roger. ‘Let’s have it – I can go to the Bar Library when you’ve told me.’

‘Well, Meadowes had an old hand up in front of him who rather liked going to prison in the winter. He had a pretty hard life and he found prison more comfortable in the cold weather. So, regularly every October he’d commit some crime worth six months, do his stretch and come out in the spring. Well, one day this old boy came up in front of Meadowes. He pleaded guilty as usual, said he had nothing to say and waited for the usual six months.

‘“Three months imprisonment,” said Meadows.

‘The old boy thought he must have misheard.

‘“What’s that?” he said.

‘“Three months imprisonment,” repeated the clerk.

‘“But that’s all wrong, your Worship. I always get six months for this.”

‘“Take him away,” said the clerk.

‘The old boy clung to the bars of the dock.

‘“But please, your Worship, make it six. I always get six for this, straight I do.”

‘A policeman started to remove him from the dock.

‘“Leave me alone, you something something,” said the old man. “I have my rights.”

‘“Now, look,” said Meadowes, who thought he had better take a hand, “if you don’t behave yourself, I shan’t send you to prison at all!”’

At that moment Alec came into the room.

‘Mr Grimes would like to see you, sir,’ he said to Roger.

‘How are ye, my dear fellow,’ said Mr Grimes when Roger arrived. ‘Now look, my dear fellow, will ye very kindly keep this case in the Magistrate’s Court back till I arrive tomorrow. It’ll be quite all right, my dear fellow. I’ve spoken to Brunner who’s on the other side and he’s agreeable. All ye have to do is to tell the clerk before the magistrate sits, and then wait till I come. If by accident it’s called on before I come, just ask the magistrate to keep it back.’

‘You will be there, I suppose?’ said Roger, who had learned a good deal now by experience.

‘Of course I’ll be there, my dear fellow, of course I’ll be there. What are ye thinking of? Of course I’ll be there. Dear, dear, dear – not be there, who ever heard of such a thing, dear, dear, dear.’

‘Suppose it is called on and the magistrate won’t keep it back?’

‘Just tell him the tale, my dear fellow, just tell him the tale.’

‘But what tale?’

‘Look, my dear fellow,’ said Mr Grimes, ‘if ye don’t want to do it, ye needn’t. I can get Hallfield to do it. But I thought ye might like it, my dear fellow, I thought ye might like it.’

‘Oh, I should very much.’

‘That’s right, my dear fellow, that’s the way, that’s the way. Ye have seen the papers, have ye?’

‘I’ve looked at them, but not very thoroughly.’

‘Well, ye’d better look at them again now, my dear fellow. Ye’ll find lots of tales to tell from them, my dear fellow. Oh, dear, yes. It’s a fine kettle of fish. Taking machinery from under their very noses. I don’t know what we’re coming to, my dear fellow, I really don’t. They’ll be stealing houses next and factories. They took half the contents of one in this case. And from under their very noses, under their very noses. I don’t know, my dear fellow, but there it is. They will do these things, they will do these things.’

Roger took the papers away. The case was about a large conspiracy to steal. Roger wondered if he’d ever be able to master a brief of that size, though he had more confidence in being able to do so than he had three months previously.

The next day he went to the Magistrate’s Court in plenty of time and saw the clerk before the magistrate sat.

‘That’s a bit awkward,’ said the clerk. ‘The lists are in a complete mess today. He’s taking some summonses after the charges but there aren’t many of them and they won’t last long. Can’t you start it?’

‘I’d rather not,’ said Roger.

‘I thought that’s how you got experience at the Bar,’ said the clerk. ‘When I was practising as a solicitor they used to play it on me like blazes. Sometimes I’d get the most awful damn fools appearing for part of the case when I’d briefed someone quite good. But it’s jolly good experience for the young chaps who come down. Not such a pleasant experience for the solicitor sometimes, or easy to explain to the client.’

‘Yes, it must be difficult, I agree. D’you think you’ll be able to keep this case back, though?’ asked Roger anxiously. ‘I’m sure the solicitor will be furious if I do it. I’m only a pupil, you know.’

‘Splendid,’ said the clerk. ‘I suppose it’s the nasty part of my nature coming out. I love to see it happening to other people. Watch the client squirm while you make a mess of it – not that you’d make a mess of it, I’m sure, Mr – Mr–’

‘Thursby’s my name,’ said Roger, ‘and I can be guaranteed to make a complete mess of it. So if that’s what you want, call the case and you’ll have a whale of a time.’

Roger was surprised at his own self-confidence. The clerk laughed.

‘Well, that’s the first time I’ve heard counsel talk like that. Good for you, if I may say so, and if you don’t mind an older man, albeit a solicitor, saying this – if you stick to that attitude of mind you’ll have a darned good chance of getting on. It’s these smart alecs and know-alls who come croppers. Good for you. Very glad to have met you. I’ll keep the old boy back even if he starts dancing round the room.’

‘That’s awfully good of you,’ said Roger. ‘I’m most grateful. Sorry to have done you out of a good laugh though. One day p’raps I’ll have a brief of my own and then you’ll be able to make up for it.’

It was the first time Roger had been to a magistrate’s court and he watched the proceedings with interest. First came the overnight charges, the drunks, the prostitutes, the suspected persons, and so forth.

‘Were you drunk and incapable?’

‘Yes.’

‘Facts, officer.’

Facts stated.

‘Anything known?’

‘Not for this, your Worship.’

‘Anything to say?’

Nothing.

‘Ten shillings, please.’

And so on to the next case. The speed at which the magistrate got through his work astounded Roger and, after a morning at his Court, he thought that, if as he supposed, every Court had much the same amount to do, it was a great tribute to the care and ability of London magistrates that so few people complain of their cases not being properly heard. But he wondered what would happen if there were a concerted scheme on the part of the public to plead Not Guilty. It would cause chaos. As it was, most of those charged or summoned pleaded Guilty. It seems a pity all the same, he thought, that criminal cases have to be tried at such a rate. He had started to work out in his mind what the cost to the country of a few extra magistrates and courts would be, when his attention was distracted from this calculation by the case of Cora. She was a demure-looking person and when she went into the dock she looked modestly down at her feet. The charge was read out and she was asked if she pleaded Guilty or Not Guilty. She started to say ‘Guilty’ when she looked up and saw who the magistrate was. Metropolitan Courts have at least two magistrates, sometimes sitting alternate days, sometimes in separate Courts on the same day. She had arrived late and thought that someone else would be sitting.

‘Oh, no,’ she said, ‘Not Guilty. Not Guilty at all. I should say not,’ and she added under her breath something which the jailer could hear but the magistrate, who was old and slightly deaf, could not. What she said was: ‘Not with you there, you old stinker.’

‘What was that?’ asked the magistrate.

‘I didn’t quite catch, your Worship,’ said the jailer, after a slight cough.

‘Didn’t know it was me, was that it?’ asked the magistrate.

‘Something like that, your Worship,’ coughed the jailer.

‘Oh, I only wanted the sense, thank you,’ said the magistrate. ‘Very well. Take the oath, officer.’

Roger discovered the reason for the sudden change in Cora’s attitude. Most magistrates fine prostitutes forty shillings and that’s the end of the matter. They pay this about once a fortnight and the amount is only a trifle out of their considerable earnings. That is the maximum penalty that can be imposed. But there is power under an old Act – some six hundred years old – to call upon them to find sureties for their good behaviour with the alternative of a term of imprisonment. No prostitute can find such sureties, whether she is on her own or run by a man. If she is on her own, she would not normally know any who would stand as surety; if she is controlled by a man, the man who controls her would not mind losing his twenty-five pounds or whatever it was when the condition of the recognizance was broken, as, of course, it would be – but he does not want to advertise his relationship to the girl. In consequence in almost every instance of a prostitute being called upon to find sureties for her good behaviour, she goes to prison instead. Mr Meadowes was wont to adopt this course and, as often as not, prostitutes who were to appear before him simply did not turn up, but came on another day when there was another magistrate. Cora had made a mistake. As soon as she saw it she changed her plea to ‘Not Guilty’ just in time. Roger wondered whether the police would be able to establish, as they had to, that people who had been solicited by Cora had been annoyed. It could not be altogether an easy task, he thought, as none of the men solicited would be likely to give evidence. In Cora’s case the material evidence was as follows:

POLICE OFFICER: ‘At the corner of Regent Street I saw the accused approach a man. She smiled at him and said something. He walked away hurriedly. Five minutes later at about the same spot she approached another man. He spoke to her for a minute and then went away. He appeared annoyed. A few minutes later she approached another man. He apparently saw her coming and avoided her. I then arrested the accused. She said, “Take your hands off me, you filthy stinker. Why don’t you go after some of the French girls. They drop you too much, I suppose.” At the police station she was charged and said: “You’re all a lot of stinking so-and-so’s.”’

THE CLERK (To CORA): ‘Do you want to ask the officer any questions?’

CORA: ‘I’ll say. That first man you say I spoke to, how d’you know I didn’t know him?’

POLICE OFFICER: ‘He didn’t appear to know you. He walked off hurriedly.’

CORA: ‘He may not have liked me.’

MAGISTRATE: ‘Next question.’

CORA: ‘You say the next man was annoyed, how do you know?’

POLICE OFFICER: ‘He seemed annoyed.’

MAGISTRATE: ‘How did he show his annoyance?’

POLICE OFFICER: ‘He just seemed annoyed, your Worship.’

CORA: ‘What at?’

POLICE OFFICER: ‘Because you solicited him.’

CORA: ‘How do you know that?’

POLICE OFFICER: ‘There couldn’t have been any other reason.’

CORA: ‘I might have asked him for a light.’

POLICE OFFICER: ‘He didn’t put his hand in his pocket.’

CORA: ‘Well, of course, he wouldn’t if he didn’t have a match, would he? You didn’t hear what I said, did you?’

POLICE OFFICER: ‘No, but you smiled at him.’

CORA: ‘Is that a crime? Don’t you smile at anyone?’

MAGISTRATE: ‘You needn’t answer that question.’

CORA: ‘Well, I want him to.’

MAGISTRATE: ‘I don’t. Next question.’

CORA: ‘That’s all, your Worship, except that it’s all lies what the officer says.’

MAGISTRATE: ‘Is what you have said true, officer?’

POLICE OFFICER: ‘Yes, your Worship. That’s the case, your Worship.’

CLERK (To CORA): ‘Now, do you wish to give evidence on oath or make a statement from where you are?’

CORA: ‘I’ll stay where I am, thank you. I was just waiting for a girlfriend. I didn’t speak or look at anyone. The officer may have mistaken me for someone else. That man I was supposed to have spoken to, he spoke to me first. He asked me the time. I suppose he had an appointment and was late. That’s why he hurried off. That’s all I’ve got to say.’

The magistrate found the case proved and, on Cora admitting her previous convictions, which were read out, he ordered her to find two sureties for her good behaviour in the sum of twenty-five pounds each or go to prison for six months.

‘It’s a stinking shame,’ shouted Cora before she was removed from the dock, to which she clung for a short time. ‘Why don’t you have your stinking name put up outside your stinking Court?’

Roger was rather disturbed by these cases. The Galahad in him became very prominent. Couldn’t something be done for these girls? he asked himself. He wished he could help. He couldn’t very well offer to be surety himself. For one thing he wasn’t worth twenty-five pounds and for another he didn’t think it would look well. But he made a mental resolution that if and when he had the power or opportunity, he would do all he could to help these wretched creatures, many of whom are born into the world without a reasonable chance. A morning at such a Court for a kind and thoughtful young man of twenty-one is a very moving experience. And so Roger found it. He must tell Sally.

The charges went on and Roger became even more worried at the speed with which they were disposed of and at the reliance the magistrate seemed to place on the evidence of the police. But after all, he said to himself, he ought to know. He’s been there long enough. But how does he know a policeman’s telling the truth and that the other chap isn’t? I should find it jolly difficult sometimes. And just at that moment the magistrate dismissed a charge.

‘Quite right to bring it, officer,’ he said, ‘but I think there’s a doubt. You may go,’ he said to the prisoner.

When Roger saw the smile on the prisoner’s face as he left the Court he was not at all sure that his first fears were justified. But how difficult it must be to decide so many cases rightly. And so quickly. He decided to speak to Sally about that too. ‘The tempo’s too fast,’ he would say. Her mother would appreciate that.

The charges were finished and the summonses began. They were all petty motoring offences.

‘You’re charged with leaving your motor car on such and such a day at such and such a place, so as to cause an obstruction. Are you Guilty or Not Guilty?’

‘Guilty.’

‘How long, officer?’

‘One hour, thirty-five minutes.’

‘Anything known?’

‘Fined ten shillings for obstruction at Marlborough Street Magistrates’ Court on 3rd June, 1947.’

‘Anything to say?’

‘I’m very sorry, but I didn’t realize it was as long. There was nowhere else to leave it.’

‘I know the difficulties, but they must be overcome or the streets would be impassable. Pay forty shillings, please.’

Then came a few pleas of Not Guilty.

The car hadn’t been there as long as the officer said. It hadn’t caused any obstruction. Why hadn’t the officer taken the number of the other cars there? They were causing more obstruction. Some of the defendants were angry, some pained and some resigned to their fate, but they were all found guilty that day.

One lady who was fined said: ‘I’d like you to know that I entirely disagree with your decision.’

‘You can appeal, if you wish, madam.’

‘I think you twisted what I said. It isn’t fair.’

‘That will be all, thank you, madam.’ He might have been bowing her out of a shop. She tossed her head and left and Roger could imagine her telling all her friends of the grave injustice she had suffered at the hands of Mr Meadowes. The fact remained that she had left her car in a busy street at a busy time of day when her car and any other vehicles which were left were bound to cause an obstruction. The fact also remained that she was fined no more than any of the others. But, of course, it was a grave injustice and the law is most unfair.

The summonses were finished and for once Roger did not feel alarmed as he did normally when the possibility of deputizing for Grimes drew near. The few kind remarks from the clerk made all the difference. Charles had told him of an experience he’d once had at a magistrate’s court in the country. He had got to the Court early and he had had a long and pleasant talk with a man whom he believed to be the clerk to the justices. This gave Charles tremendous confidence, until the justices came in and he found that his friend was the usher and the clerk himself extremely fierce. Roger had made no such mistake. His friend was definitely the clerk.

‘Well,’ said Mr Meadowes, ‘what are we waiting for?’

The clerk whispered to him: ‘Grimes isn’t here yet. There’s only a youngster holding for him. D’you mind waiting a few minutes? He won’t be any time. It’s a heavy case.’

‘All the more reason for getting on with it. Why can’t he call the first witness? He can always be recalled if necessary. I won’t let him be bounced. But we’ll never get through these lists if we don’t get on.’

‘I rather told him you’d wait.’

‘Well, now you’d better rather tell him I won’t,’ said Mr Meadowes. ‘Cheer up,’ he added. ‘I shan’t eat him, you know.’

‘But I rather promised.’

‘Well, this’ll teach you not to. Never make promises myself. Bad habit. Thundering bad.’

The clerk thought he saw an opening.

‘D’you think so, really? We sometimes get some of our clients to make promises and occasionally they keep them. That does a lot of good.’

‘Well, you’re not doing any,’ said Mr Meadowes. ‘I’m going to start this case, promises or no promises. Now, will you tell them to get on with it or shall I?’

The clerk looked apologetically at Roger and nodded to the jailer to bring in the prisoners. There was still no Mr Grimes. His solicitor rushed out to a telephone box.

‘Where on earth is Mr Grimes?’ he shouted down the mouthpiece.

‘The senior’s out, sir,’ said a voice.

‘I don’t care where he is. Where’s Mr Grimes? The case has been called on.’

‘I’m afraid I don’t know much about it, sir.’

‘Give me patience,’ said the solicitor.

At that moment a taxi drew up and out jumped Mr Grimes and Alec. The solicitor could see this from the telephone box and at once replaced the receiver. He rushed up to Grimes who was hurrying into the Court.

‘The case has been called on,’ he said excitedly.

‘That’s all right, my dear fellow,’ said Mr Grimes. ‘Here we are and now we shan’t have to wait. So pleased to see ye, so pleased to see ye.’

And Mr Grimes dashed into the Court, panting more from habit than exertion, the distance from the taxi being much too short to put any real strain on the lungs. He slipped into counsel’s row, bowed to the magistrate, whispered: ‘Thank ye so much, my dear fellow,’ to Roger and proceeded to address the magistrate.

‘It’s very good of your Worship to have waited,’ he began.

‘I didn’t,’ said Mr Meadowes. ‘Too much to do.’

‘If your Worship pleases,’ said Mr Grimes and then opened the case to the magistrate. As Roger listened his admiration for Mr Grimes increased. He made everything crystal clear, every detail was in its right place, the story was unfolded efficiently, clearly and with overwhelming conviction. ‘Will I ever be able to do it like that?’ thought Roger. ‘I can’t believe it possible.’

As Henry had said, almost every pupil at the Bar thinks that his master does everything perfectly. Just as almost every juryman thinks a judge’s summing up is brilliant. The point, of course, is, as Roger later learned, that, seldom having heard anything done professionally before, they have no standard to judge by. Mr Grimes’ opening was certainly a perfectly proper, sound opening, but there was nothing spectacular about it and it was child’s play to any experienced advocate who had mastered his facts.

The case went on for two hours and was adjourned for a week. It was some time before the hearing was completed, although the magistrate set aside several special days for it. Meantime, the men and women charged with the various crimes alleged had the prosecution hanging over their heads and some of them were in custody. That seemed to Roger rather hard on them if they were not guilty, though having heard what Mr Grimes had said about them, he could not conceive that any of them was innocent or would be acquitted. All the same, he thought, mightn’t a few more magistrates and Courts be an advantage? He asked Henry about it.

‘It’s the Treasury,’ said Henry. ‘Of course it’s their job to fight every bit of expenditure especially at this time when the country has been crippled by two wars and public expenditure is enormous. Every suggestion of an extra judge or extra magistrate is fought by them tooth and nail. But you mustn’t forget they’ve got other claims on them from every quarter. They have to satisfy the most important. We naturally think the administration of justice is most important. But what about health and education? Are they less? Who’s to judge? I can’t. But of course, I agree that there ought to be extra magistrates. I shouldn’t have thought anyone would have disagreed. But when you say it’ll only cost so many thousands of pounds a year, that doesn’t mean a thing until you add up all the other thousands of pounds you’ve got to spend and see where they’re all to come from.’