Somehow West London Magistrates’ Court in Southcombe Street near Barons Court tube station seemed more informal than Bow Street and Marlborough Street, certainly so far as dress code was concerned. I remember at Marlborough Street seeing my friend, the giant Irishman David Sarch, appearing one morning in a Prince of Wales check suit minus waistcoat and the magistrate refusing to hear him, going through the old routine - ‘It’s no use speaking louder, Mr Sarch, I still won’t be able to hear you’ - until someone whispered to him that he was considered to be improperly dressed.

I nearly fell foul of the same problem when I appeared in what I thought was a Chancery hearing in chambers, which turned out to be in open court. I had never had a gown - when I made a rare appearance in the local county court the usher would rent his spare for five shillings, always making sure there was a gap between cases so it could be used several times in a morning. Anyway, I had no right of audience. It was too late to do anything but brazen things out, and so I apologised saying: ‘I don’t suppose you can hear me, my Lord?’ ‘Faintly,’ was the reply.

Back in West London, where local solicitor Robert Paley, that day dressed in a rather fetching cream linen suit, was addressing one of the more formidable female stipes. They had fallen out badly, with the magistrate interrupting his mitigation saying: ‘Surely, Mr Paley you have heard of section 4 of the Fire Station and Lighthouses Act 1863 (or something equally obscure) haven’t you?’ Paley, a tall man, straightened up, paused, then replied blithely: ‘I can’t rightly say I have, ma’am’ and continued unabashed.

I can only recall having one major stand-up with a stipe and that was at Camberwell. The stupid thing was that I was only acting as an agent when the police were to offer no evidence. I asked for costs but the stipe suggested that the defendant had probably got at the witness. As they say, ’fighting broke out’, and when he had lectured me at length, I replied: ‘Well, I hear what you say’ and the roof fell in. How dare I say such a thing to him? After a few minutes we both realised we had gone too far and backed off simultaneously with mutual lies - ‘one of the fairest’ and ‘a courageous advocate’.