I was delighted to note that a tribunal has found in favour of younger judges penalised with regard to their pension entitlements purely by an accident of birth (news, 16 January). A rank injustice has been rectified.
Not so for the legions of recorders who just happened to have retired before the curtain came down on their entitlement to a pension.
During my years sitting as assistant and later full recorder (1988 to 2002), I was aware of mutterings about pension entitlement and that counsel were considering taking the case to a tribunal. By the time this happened I had sat some 780 days in court, as well as running a busy practice. In this I am far from alone.
Solicitor recorders always had a harder time than counsel who could simply book out a week or more without having to consider the horrendous melange of post, messages and cancelled appointments back at the office.
Counsel were of course under pressure from their clerks to sit the minimum 20 days a year. Many of us solicitors were happy to sit 50 or more.
As a family specialist, I was kept waiting until 1994 for my family ticket. Counsel very much my junior got theirs straight away. So much for the level playing field which, frankly, was rather a joke.
John Greenwood, retired recorder, Chippenham, Wiltshire
