An Unexpected MP (20 page)

One day, George the security man rang to say that a judge was in reception and that he wanted to speak to the editor. Oh dear, this could be a problem. Not at all. Instead, he was a customer of the bank who just wanted to retrieve his accounts. Nobody dared have a peek. It could have been rather
embarrassing
to show up his regular payments to Madame du Pain or Miss Fellatia de Cock.

Two delightful guys appeared as if from nowhere one day.
Anil Bhoyrul and James Hipwell were the
Daily Mirror
share tipsters who had been sacked, quite wrongly, for allegations of rigging. This was nonsense, as all they wrote was that they would be buying certain shares. The poor lads thought they were never going to work again and were off to the pub to drown their sorrows. Until Steen rang them offering a job. And that's how the great Steen wheeze to reduce our mountain of debt was born. He persuaded Mo to let them have a pot of about £100,000 to invest. With these guys it would be a no-brainer. To be honest, it would have been better to have put it on a horse. We lost about £40,000 before the plug was pulled. And Mo? Tantrums? Sackings? Vile retribution? No. He just thought it was hilariously funny and dined out on it for years.

Steen liked me immensely, and he once said to me, ‘The thing is, Jerry, you are not only a gifted writer who knows how to tell a great story, but you have what very few political
writers
possess – a wicked sense of humour that enables you to laugh not only at others but also at yourself.' Mind you, that was after a very good lunch.

Steen was, for once in his life, seriously fazed when he could not find his credit card. So he rang up the company. And they were very perturbed.

When they ran through the litany of very familiar pubs,
restaurants and off-licences, Steen realised that there had been no fraud at all. Just a regular couple of days in the life of the editor of
Punch
. We all went out for a drink to celebrate. Our usual watering hole – though water was rarely consumed – was the Swag and Tails, where Bernie Ecclestone would also go most lunchtimes.

Punch
Christmas lunches were fairly wild. We were nearly thrown out of the Criterion when the lads from Graphics started pinging elastic bands into the heads of very irritated customers. But the strangest affair for me was when
someone
thought it was rather amusing to put me on a table with a number of manic depressives and crackheads. Guests, not employees.

‘Do you do crack, Jerry?'

‘Er, no.'

And then a discussion with others about the highs and very lows of the practice.

‘Ever contemplated suicide, Jerry?'

‘Er, no.'

Well, not until then anyway. And then a long discussion about pulleys, pills and every conceivable and inconceivable way of topping yourself.

Well, all good things eventually have to come to an end. Mo realised that his wonderful toy was becoming rather too expensive, and new people were brought in. By far the best was Andrew Neil, who just let us get on with it. But then came Phil Hall, a former editor of the
News of the World
. Mercifully, I had no dealings with him, but he wanted to interfere. Mo, finally and reluctantly, accepted James's resignation (he'd tried twice before). James was a free and innovative spirit and to
suddenly be involved in corporate political bollocks was never his style. Dom Midgley, the deputy editor, one of the most principled men that I know, resigned because he couldn't take any more. Both joined the
Mirror
and created a fantastic gossip column called ‘The Scurra'. Piers Morgan called Steen ‘the world's most mischievous journalist'. Too right. When he hired Steen, he did so on this condition: ‘I want you to do to others what you did to me in
Punch
.'

Brasso took over the editorship. Considering the witch hunts (Hall would ask members of staff who they thought should be fired), he did a remarkable job of keeping up our spirits when our numbers were dying in the Hallian trenches, and keeping the flame of Steen alive. One day, Brasso rang me.

‘Mate, it's the end.'

‘Not to worry, keep the flag flying.'

‘I can't. We're all fucked.
Punch
is to close.'

I have no doubt that if Steen had been the first editor of the relaunch,
Punch
would be making money hand over fist and would be a serious rival to
Private Eye
. And with a much more contemporary and original take on politics.

So that was the end of the most creative and fun time in my working life. I had travelled a very long way from the back benches. I had learned a craft. I had enjoyed a mad magic carpet ride into journalism. And my liver was wrecked.

It was time to go back to the law.

W
hile I was thoroughly enjoying myself as a journalist, I was desperately trying to build up my practice at the Bar. The law had travelled a long way since 1983 and I had a lot of catching up to do. Fourteen years in Parliament meant that all my instructing solicitors had either moved on or
forgotten
me. The civil law procedure rules had totally changed, so I was not going to start all over again with personal injury or employment law. And although years previously, in a moment of madness, I had taught commercial law, the thought of
practising
it filled me with the dread of mind-numbing boredom. Anyhow, jury advocacy was what I really loved. So that is why I decided to specialise in crime.

My mate Gary Jacobs, from the
Whale Show,
was a solicitor, so he helped me out. He sent me down to Snaresbrook Crown Court to defend a guy for arson with intent to endanger life. Gary told me not to worry about it too much as the evidence was overwhelming, but if I could keep the sentence down to lower double figures he would be more than happy. To the amazement of the client, the judge and me, the lad was found not guilty. As a result, Gary began to regularly brief me on serious stuff and send me all over the country.

One evening I was in Sheffield representing a man accused of murdering his wife’s lover in front of the children. It was a particularly gruesome case in which he cut the body up into eleven pieces and got the kids to help him bag it up. Then, as a thank you, he took them to Blackpool in mid-summer, with the body still in the back. Oh, and before that he had fed bits of it to his brother’s goat, which died.

These sorts of cases can be a bit stressful so it was great to hear from Gary, who broke up the gloom. We set a date for lunch and he briefly mentioned that he was going into
hospital
for a routine operation the next day. I wished him well.

It was the last time that we spoke. He died unexpectedly on the operating table the next day. I really do miss him and will be forever grateful to him for putting me back on my legal feet.

The one thing about fourteen years in Parliament is that it gives you a tremendous amount of confidence. If you can deal with the howling jackals in the chamber, have altercations with Margaret Thatcher and live to tell the tale, the judiciary will hold absolutely no terrors for you.

I first started in the courts in the late ’70s: think of
Rumpole of the Bailey
as the most accurate depiction of what life was really like at the Bar back then. Many of the judges were mad and quite terrifying.

In those days, once the Lord Chancellor had appointed you to the bench you became a law unto yourself, an unelected dictator in your own court fiefdom. Nothing could
be more depressing than appearing before a whisky-sodden judge reeking of last night’s single malt, disappointment and the failed advances to a pupil young enough to be his granddaughter.

One of my first Crown Court trials was a shoplifting case at the Inner London Crown Court. The judge was an eccentric Irish peer named Paddy Dunboyne. Apart from being very dim and amazingly biased against any defendant, Paddy was very deaf. When it came to his summing-up he had a habit of making bits of evidence up if he thought it might help the prosecution case. So he waded in with his hobnailed boots.

The trouble is, the only accurate piece of evidence in that statement was that it was November; everything else was pure fantasy. So I protested. After the usual ‘What, what? Speak up, boy’ farce that took up so much of Paddy’s court time, the penny dropped that I was politely asking him to just sum up the evidence that the jury had heard. He exploded.

‘Outrageous … impertinent … you are misleading the jury … I will report you to the Bar Council … disgraceful behaviour.’

And then counsel for the prosecution jumped to his feet. ‘Your Honour, I support my learned friend.’

That was the cherry on the cake. Paddy had a minor nuclear explosion. We were both being sent off to the Bar Council. A
few weeks later, the prosecutor and I found ourselves
appearing
before Mr Justice Rougier for a disciplinary hearing.

In those days it was very informal. Now we are governed by a ghastly, self-serving hanging court called the Bar Standards Board. So desperate are they to appear independent that you might just as well plead guilty to any ridiculous charge that they might bring and perhaps one or two others for good measure.

But back to our hearing. Rougier peered at us over his half-moons.

Paddy Pakenham (son of Lord Longford) was not quite so fortunate. He rolled back to court after a drunken lunch and was in no mood for Dunboyne’s antics. His leg was in
plaster
after a skiing accident. He was due to make his closing speech to the jury for the defence. So he heaved his plastered (although not as plastered as him) leg onto the desk, sat back and lit a cigar.

‘Members of the jury, I don’t know why I bother. You are too dim to understand a word of the defence and the judge is deaf, biased and profoundly stupid.’

Of course, it was all true, but not a good idea to say so in open court, particularly when drunk. Paddy was sent off to rehab for a while and died a couple of years ago.

El Vino in Fleet Street is the legendary watering hole for judges, the Bar and the press. It is an alcoholic black hole where whole days can be lost. On most evenings you will find my chums Philip Shorrock, a judge sitting at Woolwich, Michael Latham, an old-fashioned criminal hack like me, and Gareth Jones, a whizz-kid tax lawyer, propping up the bar. As convivial a bunch as you could ever meet. I think all
barristers
and criminal judges are hefted to EV; it has a dangerous magnetic pull. It is also a home from home. In the old days before cash machines we used the place as a bank. Pommeroy’s Wine Bar in the
Rumpole
stories was based on it.

Traditionally, women weren’t allowed to stand at the bar. They could only be served seated. EV was taken to court over this and lost. I was drinking with an ancient Bailey hack called Crespi on the day of the judgment. Brilliant, witty and
weighing
in at about twenty-five stone, he was regaling me with his legal war stories when suddenly the door burst open and in marched a pretty young girl dressed in a fur coat, followed by a snapper from
The Sun.
Clearly, a red-top set-up. Christopher Mitchell, a co-owner of EV (and uncle to Plebgate MP Andrew), who was always impeccably dressed in pinstripe trousers and a black jacket, did his best to evict her. It led to them wrestling on the floor and her revealing that she was totally naked under the coat. It was not very dignified but delightfully entertaining. And great photos in
The Sun.

Just off Blackfriars Bridge there is EV2. Not so much of a den of iniquity as the Fleet Street branch, but it has had its moments. When I was an MP I attended a hack’s farewell. A few Cabinet ministers were in attendance and in particular the delightfully camp, but very straight, John Patten, who used
to greet you in the lobby with a cheery ‘hello, duckie’. I was in mischievous mood and went up to a young gay hack
suggesting
that he pop over and give Patten a kiss, as he might get a story out of it. About two minutes later I saw the lad in the arms of two burly men, who threw him out onto the
pavement
. This, after all, was the unenlightened 1980s.

Suddenly, a journo dripping with blood staggered up the stairs from the gents. ‘I’ve just been attacked,’ he wheezed. Fleet Street at its drunken best excitedly rushed down the stairs, expecting a brawl. There was nobody there. The
boozed-up
hack had just fallen down the stairs and the rest was nothing but a product of his addled imagination.

When I came back to the Bar it was rather a different place from when I left it. Judges were properly trained and
accountable
and most of the seriously deranged had taken early
retirement
. It wasn’t long before I was leading high-profile murders for the defence. A few stick in my mind.

Fifteen years ago I was at the Bailey defending a man accused of strangling his wife. There was prosecution evidence that just before she died her uncle received a phone call from her and claimed that he could hear my client shouting in the background. This was tricky as our defence was that we were somewhere else at the time. And then I remembered Lulu. She was the defendant’s parrot who did a very passable
imitation
of him. So I had a brainwave. Let’s call Lulu!

The thought of an out-of-control parrot flying round the Old Bailey squawking expletives and ‘Chelsea for the cup’, and crapping indiscriminately, was potentially fantastic
entertainment
for the red tops, but would not be very popular with the judge. So I sent a solicitor not so much to get a statement
from it, but to see how it behaved. Well, Lulu proved to be a little star and sounded remarkably like the defendant. The trouble was that every time a tape recorder was put in front of her, she clammed up. That sparkling line of defence had sadly bitten the dust.

I had a beautiful and brilliant junior called Grace Ong, who kept an almost word-perfect note of what was being said on her laptop. At one stage I suggested to the judge that he might care to refer to her note. After staring at the laptop he passed it back with a grunt and gave us both a very odd stare. Over lunch we had a look at the notes. Earlier, we had noticed that some old silk had been taking an unusual interest in the laptop.

‘Just admiring the software, old boy,’ he grinned.

What he didn’t tell us is that he had just altered the default settings. So every time Grace typed in ‘judge’, it defaulted to ‘boring old fart’, and ‘prosecution’ became ‘twat’.

Then I got a fascinating case which was dubbed the ‘great postal ballot fraud’. I was parachuted into Birmingham for the first Election Commission in 100 years. I was representing two Labour councillors found in a factory unit surrounded by postal ballot papers, pens and Tipp-Ex. The commissioner was Richard Maury QC, sitting as a deputy High Court judge. And jolly good news he was too. A great sense of humour and impeccably fair. The hearing, which lasted for about a month, was held in a theatre. This was odd in itself as members of the public would walk in, eat their lunch and then saunter out. It was like care in the community. The petition was issued by John Hemming, now a Liberal Democrat MP. Sadly, I had to rough him up a bit in the witness box for a couple of days.

This case became notorious as it showed widespread abuse
of the totally inadequate postal voting rules, leading Maury to comment that our electoral system was like that of a ‘banana republic’. The abuses were horrendous and the
administration
of the election dire. Bags of uncounted postal votes were found in council offices and one official was accused by Maury of ‘throwing away the election rule book’. We went crashing down.

A week later I received a phone call from John Hemming, then a parliamentary candidate. I thought he was going to have a moan about my treatment of him in the witness box. Far from it. The starting gun for the 2005 election had been fired. Would I represent him in the High Court to try to halt the election until the postal ballot rules were made compatible with European law? Of course.

This was going to be a high-profile case in the
administrative
court, not somewhere that I was particularly familiar with, so I persuaded Simon Baker, a very able barrister in chambers with a brain the size of a melon (albeit a small one), to be my junior. He would do all the heavy lifting, while I would do the jazz hands. Neither of us would be paid, but the publicity would be enormous.

You may remember a few chapters back the story of my long refreshing lunch with the
News of the World
and a dash to the Oxford Union for a debate on Europe with Bill Cash? Well, Simon reminded me that he was the teller on the vote and that he had had to break me out of the gents’ lavatory as I had somehow locked myself in. His skills would be
particularly
useful, then.

The court was packed with journalists, this being the middle of an election campaign. Presiding was Mr Justice Collins, a
formidable intellectual presence, who certainly wasn’t going to take any nonsense from me.

I did my best to persuade him that politicians could not be trusted to amend the law and that the only protection the public could have against unfair elections was judicial
interference
. After all, politicians are well known for breaking their promises.