From Barrister to Bestselling Author: Journey Through Law, Corruption, and Crime Fiction with Simon Michael

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I was instructed in a defence case where I was convinced that my client was

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guilty because the evidence all pointed that way. And we

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discovered during the course of the trial that the evidence had been planted on him

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by a police detective sergeant.

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So am I right in saying that in the criminal.

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At the Criminal bar, you never, ever asked a

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client, did you do it? It's like the number one

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criminal barristerial practice. Number one, never ask the

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question, did you or didn't you commit this offence? Did you ever. When

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you were at the bar in the uk, did you ever

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have a police station experience? Were you ever the guy

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that the client called and said, don't worry, I'll meet you down at. And

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you had to engage with the staff sergeant or whatever.

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Welcome to the Intelligence Advantage podcast, where I,

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Gary Miller, get to talk to the movers and shapers in the investigation

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and intelligence industry and find out exactly how they

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got to where they are today. I'm absolutely

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thrilled to be joined by somebody who

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is a man after my own heart, in the sense that he has

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transitioned from being a humble

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lawyer into being a famous author.

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And Simon is a crime

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fiction writer, screenplay writer and, I'm

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sure, many, many more things. So, Simon, welcome and thank you so much

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for joining me. It's a great pleasure. Gary, thank you for inviting me.

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No, that is my pleasure, I promise you. So I guess

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what I want to. You and I have had a little warm up chat before,

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but I want to ask you, what

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is it that made you decide that the law

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was for you and in particular, being a barrister? Because we've

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spoken a bit and I get the feeling that you would have done pretty

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well as a solicitor as well. But what made you decide to become a

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barrister? I had Jewish parents who had very strong views

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on the subject. In fact, I wanted to become a

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playwright, writer and maybe an actor. And they said, yeah, you

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could do that after you've had a career as a lawyer or a doctor. And

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those are my choices. They, you know, they came, they didn't have money,

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so they worked very, very hard to get me. Why? Why?

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Baristerial. That's the, that's slightly the, the more difficult

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barrier to entry. Simon isn't there. I don't know about that. It just looked

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more exciting and it, it felt more in

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tune with my personality because I'm a Bourne show off.

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And I thought that if I wasn't going to go on the stage, I'd better

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do something similar. So the bar always appealed to me. Fair

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enough. And they do say that barristers are either

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frustrated or satisfied thespians.

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There's been many occasions when I've been in conferences with

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barristers and I'm thinking, I don't see how this person

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can possibly command a courtroom. And then you walk into

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the courtroom and the whole Persona

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changes and you go like, wow, that's amazing. So

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did that occur to you? Did you find that as you put on, I

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don't know how often you were. I guess if you're an open court in those

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days, and maybe now you still wore a wig and a gown, did you suddenly

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feel that, that aura of whatever it is come over you and

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the eloquent start? No, I.

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You do feel, when you're putting your clobber on, that you're

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getting into your armor for battle. And I know most barristers feel that

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way, but look, this is going to sound terrible and

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I apologize if it sounds arrogant. Some people walk into

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court and they just don't have the charisma,

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the ability to hold an audience.

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And some have, and you can tell the difference. And

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I'm not even actually sure it's something you can learn. I'm certain as

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the more work you do as a barrister, the

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better you become. But that piece of magic, that little

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something that makes people turn and look at you and listen to you when

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you open your mouth, I just think it's something you've either got or

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you haven't. And I was always a bit of a

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thespian and I think I had it

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and have it, but to be honest, it's for others to

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judge. So just thinking back to what your mom and dad said,

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you did indeed follow their advice. You became a barrister first and then

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you went into the playwriting or screenwriting and book

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writing industry. So I guess you, you

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are a. An obedient and, and

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loyal son. After all. It only took

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you 30 something years, but never mind. So

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tell me about what, if anything, you and the family knew about the

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law. You said mum and dad wanted you to become a lawyer, but had they

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had any brushes with the law at all? No. As far as they

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were concerned, law or medicine, you have to understand,

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they came from a relatively impoverished East End

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family. I'm not going to over, I'm not going to lather that, you know, they

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did. They weren't living on the bread line, but they never had much money. And

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as a result of an accident that occurred at my father's work

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when I was in my early teens, he was unemployed for some years and he

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was disabled by it. So they Were, you know, they were up against it.

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And having worked so hard to get my brother and I through

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university, they thought that me going

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on the stage would just. Would throw it away. And

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eventually, after finishing my pupilage, I applied to

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RADA and got myself

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an audition. The people at RADA said, listen, if you

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were insane enough to throw away a potential

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career as a barrister to want to be an actor, then all

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right, well, come along and show us what you got. Because

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I was about to 24 then, so five

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years older than the average kid who was applying.

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And the. The trouble that got me that my parents,

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they wouldn't talk to me for a while. They were furious. Then they tried bullying.

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Then my mother, who had a doctorate in emotional blackmail, went

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on that tech. And eventually I thought, no, okay, I'm, you know, if I want

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any relationship with them, I'm going to have to do as they said. So

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what I don't understand. Or maybe you'll say he did. Did your elder

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brother also get the same emotional pressure? Younger

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brother and. Oh, younger brother, sorry, yes. And he did. Although, I mean,

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as often as the case with the eldest, you're the one who fight, who

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forges your way through the jungle. You fight the battles and it's always easier for

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those following. So he was. He was able to do a

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lot more of what he wanted without them. I also think the.

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And what does he do? My brother is an entrepreneur.

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Okay. He's worked in this country. He's been living

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in Australia for quite a while, but. So he was. He was an entrepreneur.

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I would say look at that life and think that

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that could have been me, that. And you would have liked to have been an

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entrepreneur or not really? Absolutely not. No, no, no. I did,

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in the end, enjoy my career at the bar. Hugely,

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enormously hard work and very long hours.

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And I have the divorces to prove it. But nonetheless, I

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notice you say is. Divorce is. Oh, dear. Okay.

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And we'll come to that in due course. So there's always a bit of.

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A. Bit of war wounds on the way. Right. Well,

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it's very difficult, I think, for anyone to have a relationship with somebody whose

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principal relationship is with their job. And if you're working 60 or 70

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hours a week and you keep on breaking social dates and

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even on occasion, canceling holidays because a case has run on,

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I can understand how it's extremely difficult to live with someone like that.

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That's putting to one side all my personal faults, and that's just

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the job. So. Yeah, so I. I loved it. I

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enjoyed the job hugely, but I always wanted to go

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back to the writing. I don't know if you know, but I wrote, I wrote

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a couple of books in the 80s. Yes, they did. I'm going to come to,

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I'm going to come to the Cutthroat book, the

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Cutthroat in a minute, but I'm

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gonna try my best to follow a, a little bit of my roadmap

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and sort of build up the momentum and the tension.

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So as a frustrated thespian, or maybe not

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frustrated, as a committed thespian, you quite sensibly

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realize that if you wanted to be on the stage on a regular basis, it's

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a criminal bar, not the civil bar for you. Right. Because you'd spent

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a whole lot amount of time in chambers advising, which is not that much

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fun. That was. Right, that was my first thought. But as you know,

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crime doesn't pay. And as the legal aid rates were cut

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and cut, I had to gradually increase the areas of practice

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into a professional negligence contract. Landlord and

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tenant. I still. The main body of it for the first 20 years was

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still crime, which. How did you go about

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selecting. Let's hope that there are young aspiring

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barristers who are watching this.

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How did you go about selecting the chambers? Because I know from our previous

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chat you didn't go for the obvious city, London

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based criminal chambers. How did you go about

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approaching the selection process? Well, it's usually the other way

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around. You take what you're given. I mean

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if, I suppose if you have a double first from Oxbridge and

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you have relatives in the law, you might get a choice.

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But the truth is I applied for a couple of sets of chambers.

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I was offered by one. They did a mixture of

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common law with the emphasis on crime. And I thought, no, I

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can probably make a living there. And for the first 10 years I did

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almost exclusively crime, but as you know, the

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legal aid rates were cut and then cut again. And it

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got to the point where I thought I'd better add

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other areas to my practice. So I started doing a bit of personal injury, a

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bit of landlord and tenant, a bit of commercial. I did everything,

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which is very unusual nowadays because nowadays most people specialize

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more or less straight after pupilage. But in my day, when we're talking about

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the late 70s, you did everything, everything that came your

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way, didn't turn a thing down. So do you remember the very first

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court that you ponied up at? I mean, you would have had to do

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pupilage, I guess. And that means you're still going to court. But

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once you've got your wig and gown firmly tucked under your arm,

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do you remember the very first case that you proudly walked in and. And,

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and did as a fully qualified barrister? I do,

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yes. Okay. It's a good story too. I was representing a

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young lady at Tottenham Magistrates Court who was. Who was

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charged with soliciting. She. She'd been seen

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on the. At the junction at Wood Green, at the traffic lights,

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sort of leaning into the windows of drivers

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cars as they pulled up to the traffic lights. The police

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said she was looking for business. She said, no, I'm looking for

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directions. But, you know, it didn't matter to me because I

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read the papers, I was only dealing with an adjournment. And so

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this was my very first case. I went along on the Monday,

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Monday afternoon. It was the middle of February, cold, wet and

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gray. Where were you? In the courts of. Where, sorry, the

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Tottenham Magistrates Court. Tottenham Magistrates. Okay. And

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I met my client, who was charming, very well dressed, very well

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spoken young lady. So. And we just drank tea until

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we were called on almost last. And then my opponent, he

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said I'd read the papers and I didn't have to do much prep because although

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I was extremely nervous, I read it appeared that the

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police were asking for an adjournment and the defense had agreed.

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So I was just being sent along as a body to say my one

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line, though the defence have no objections, sir,

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so we're going to court. And my opponent stands up and says that

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they're looking for an adjournment. And he understood that it was all agreed with the

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defense. And I could sense something was wrong immediately

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because an agistrate started talking between the three of them. And then the

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chairman of the bench spoke to my opponent and said,

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you do know this is the third occasion on which we had. This case has

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been adjourned because you couldn't go ahead. And he said, no, sir, I didn't know

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that this is the first time I'd been instructed. And the magistrate said, well, it

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is and frankly, unless you can get your witness here, we're minded to dismiss

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this complaint. Can you get your witness? And my opponent said, well,

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no, that's why we've asked for the adjournment. So he said, all right, you sit

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down, Mr. Michael, stand up. And he said, would you

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have any objection if we were to dismiss this complaint? And I basically

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read my one line, no, sir, the defense have no objections.

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He said, fine, case dismissed. And I won my first case.

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Wow. There you go. You Definitely. You were. Definitely

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had the luck of. I don't know, whoever it was, but you were

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definitely blessed for that one occasion. So did that go down into

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folklore in the chambers when you went back home, when you went back

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to work? I don't know how much time you got, and I don't know how

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near the knuckle I can get to with this, but it had a sequel because

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the client was absolutely delighted. And as she was leaving,

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she said, you've been paid, haven't you? And I said, no, you're

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on Legal Aid. It'll be a couple of years before I'm paid. And she said,

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no, I don't think I'm on Legal Aid. And I said, no, you are. And

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I opened up the papers again and showed her the carbon of the Legal

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Aid application form. And I said, that's your signature, isn't it?

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And she said, oh, yes, it is. This has been going on for so long,

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I'd completely forgotten. And she said, how much will you get from

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Legal Aid? And I said, well, I'm sorry to say, I don't think they're going

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to treat that as a trial. I mean, I know you were acquitted,

228
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but they're going to treat it as an adjournment. So it's £4.

229
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And she said, oh, no, that's how much? £4, £4,

230
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1978. So she takes. She goes bends down, she said, that's not enough.

231
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And she picks up the fattest roll of notes I've ever

232
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seen from her bag and she starts peeling off ones and

233
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fives. She's trying to give them to me. And look, I

234
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was a bright kid, but I was very green. And I'm thinking, hang on a

235
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second, if she's eligible for Legal Aid, why does all this money come.

236
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Oh. And so she's trying to give

237
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it to me, and I'm saying, no, no, no, really, I can't take that. And

238
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she said, why? Well, I could hardly say because I suspect it's the proceeds of

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prostitution. So I had to come up with something. And I said, no, no, I

240
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can't be paid twice. I'm going to get Legal Aid money. I can't take private.

241
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And she said, well, I won't tell anyone if you don't. And I said, no,

242
00:14:57,170 --> 00:15:01,010
no, really, really, really, but just put your money away. I don't. I don't

243
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want it. And she said, all right, if you're sure. And I said, I am.

244
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And she put the money back into her bag and this then said, you don't

245
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want to come in the back for a quickie, do you? It's on the house.

246
00:15:13,170 --> 00:15:16,610
I was about to suggest, but then I thought a.

247
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My wife would definitely do something to me if I even suggested it.

248
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So it was. It must have been from heaven that you came out with

249
00:15:24,260 --> 00:15:27,220
it. I thought it was like she was either going to invite you out for

250
00:15:27,220 --> 00:15:30,700
a drink or a dinner or whatever. So that. Did she.

251
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I have to ask. Did she ever become your client again,

252
00:15:34,300 --> 00:15:37,740
by any mad chance? No, never did. Never did.

253
00:15:38,380 --> 00:15:41,700
That may have been because I turned her down. I don't know. She. She got

254
00:15:41,700 --> 00:15:45,380
very offended when I said no. Oh, she did, did she? No, she said,

255
00:15:45,380 --> 00:15:48,470
yeah. Why, what's the matter? Don't you fancy me or something? I had to come

256
00:15:48,470 --> 00:15:52,150
up with some excuse. So I said to her, look, I. I'm supposed to

257
00:15:52,150 --> 00:15:55,470
pay my clock 10% of my fee. And I said,

258
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I haven't a clue how I go about calculating that.

259
00:16:02,350 --> 00:16:05,990
So, yes, well, let's. Let's leave it there because I've got all sorts of

260
00:16:05,990 --> 00:16:09,470
weird and wonderful formulas going on in my mind, but I don't think we can

261
00:16:09,470 --> 00:16:11,550
share that with our. With our very

262
00:16:14,130 --> 00:16:17,490
restrained and conventional public. Okay, so that was.

263
00:16:17,970 --> 00:16:21,690
That's interesting, because one of my questions was what was

264
00:16:21,690 --> 00:16:25,010
the first life lesson that you learned

265
00:16:26,530 --> 00:16:30,370
in your early career at the bar? Something about, I

266
00:16:30,370 --> 00:16:33,730
mean, that particular event is a good example of

267
00:16:34,690 --> 00:16:38,450
less is more, I guess. Keep your mouth shut unless you absolutely have to. But

268
00:16:38,530 --> 00:16:41,890
what was the. Was there something more profound that you learned as you were

269
00:16:42,660 --> 00:16:46,340
sort of treading the boards in court? And what was it? Don't trust the police?

270
00:16:47,300 --> 00:16:50,740
It was okay. As simple as that. I lived in

271
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London. My parents had always said when I was a kid and was out, you

272
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know, When I was 15 or 16, I was out in town. And they'd say,

273
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if you're in trouble, speak. You know, go to a policeman. It took less

274
00:17:00,540 --> 00:17:04,260
than six weeks before I realized that you couldn't do that in. In the

275
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Met. The time. At that time, they were institutionally corrupt.

276
00:17:08,380 --> 00:17:12,220
And the trouble was, I'm not suggesting that there were no honest covers, because clearly

277
00:17:12,220 --> 00:17:15,260
there were. But you didn't know which was which. But

278
00:17:15,980 --> 00:17:19,660
the stuff that I dealt with on a daily basis revealed the

279
00:17:19,660 --> 00:17:22,780
level of the corruption in the police at the time.

280
00:17:23,340 --> 00:17:27,100
I've got to pause you and say six weeks is not very long.

281
00:17:27,580 --> 00:17:31,100
So what. What was it? Was there one incident that you.

282
00:17:31,260 --> 00:17:34,940
That must have been something dramatic because it's such a short period of

283
00:17:34,940 --> 00:17:38,720
time. Yeah, well, I Won't go into details, it'll

284
00:17:38,720 --> 00:17:42,560
take too long. But essentially I was instructed in a defence case where I was

285
00:17:42,560 --> 00:17:46,400
convinced that my client was guilty because the evidence all pointed

286
00:17:46,400 --> 00:17:50,200
that way. And we discovered during the course of the trial that the evidence

287
00:17:50,200 --> 00:17:53,720
had been planted on him by a police detective

288
00:17:53,720 --> 00:17:57,400
sergeant. He had just decided that my client looked

289
00:17:57,560 --> 00:18:01,000
prime for it, he had a case to clear up and

290
00:18:01,800 --> 00:18:05,590
they had framed him. And the sort of stuff, I mean, I don't know,

291
00:18:05,830 --> 00:18:09,470
hold on, just pause there. How do you discover that kind of thing? Or does

292
00:18:09,470 --> 00:18:13,070
it take too long to explain? I mean, of course the client says, I didn't

293
00:18:13,070 --> 00:18:16,510
have it on me, but was there something forensic that proved that he couldn't have

294
00:18:16,510 --> 00:18:19,910
had it? Yeah, well, it was all. What they did was they had

295
00:18:19,910 --> 00:18:23,630
planted a thing called a travel warrant. Now, you

296
00:18:23,630 --> 00:18:27,390
probably know travel warrant is the document that allowed, in

297
00:18:27,390 --> 00:18:30,230
those days, allowed people released from prison

298
00:18:31,640 --> 00:18:35,240
to get home. It was essentially like a government issued ticket,

299
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:39,160
a rape ticket. And they had planted a travel warrant

300
00:18:39,320 --> 00:18:43,040
with his details on it in the place where he

301
00:18:43,040 --> 00:18:46,759
is alleged to have slept overnight in the house that he was burgling. And

302
00:18:46,759 --> 00:18:50,400
it had been planted by the officer who had got a

303
00:18:50,400 --> 00:18:54,040
copy from the prison where he'd been released on the last occasion.

304
00:18:54,680 --> 00:18:57,880
And this, I almost, almost

305
00:18:58,040 --> 00:19:01,720
persuaded the guy to plead guilty because the evidence seemed to me to be

306
00:19:01,720 --> 00:19:05,360
overwhelming. And I said to him, look, with your history, you're going to get 12

307
00:19:05,360 --> 00:19:09,160
years if you get out for this burglary. So, you know, expensive, valuable, burglary. It

308
00:19:09,160 --> 00:19:12,920
was burglary. Was it? And he was a career burglar. And he kept

309
00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:16,600
on saying, but I didn't do this one. And I was saying, well, I'm sure

310
00:19:16,760 --> 00:19:19,240
there are others that you did do that you haven't been caught for, but I'm

311
00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:22,760
telling you, the evidence on this is enough to convict you.

312
00:19:23,300 --> 00:19:27,140
But he would not have it. He said, I know this is my mo, but

313
00:19:27,140 --> 00:19:30,740
that's why they've chosen me, to fit me up. This was not me.

314
00:19:30,740 --> 00:19:34,460
And he got it. He dug his heels in and I kept saying to him,

315
00:19:34,460 --> 00:19:38,020
look, you're comparing 12 years after a fight that you lose

316
00:19:38,100 --> 00:19:41,900
or eight years if you'll plead early. And he just would not

317
00:19:41,900 --> 00:19:45,740
have it. And it was only when we got into court that we realized there

318
00:19:45,740 --> 00:19:49,350
was something wrong with the evidence. And

319
00:19:49,510 --> 00:19:53,190
it's too long to explain the detail, but he was acquitted in the end.

320
00:19:53,670 --> 00:19:57,350
But the staff that came in with PACE, the Police and Criminal Evidence

321
00:19:57,350 --> 00:20:01,190
Act, 1984, it was the first time there'd been ever

322
00:20:01,270 --> 00:20:05,110
any proper rules requiring the police to record

323
00:20:05,270 --> 00:20:09,110
what went on once you go inside the

324
00:20:09,110 --> 00:20:12,710
front door of a police station. Until then, there was a thing called the Judge's

325
00:20:12,710 --> 00:20:16,350
rules, which were more oft honoured in the breach than the observance

326
00:20:16,350 --> 00:20:20,090
thereof. And it

327
00:20:20,090 --> 00:20:23,850
was like the Wild West. It's difficult to describe to people who weren't actually there

328
00:20:23,930 --> 00:20:27,770
down in the trenches at that time. But all this nonsense that you

329
00:20:27,770 --> 00:20:31,490
see, for example, on line of duty, when they're interviewing someone

330
00:20:31,490 --> 00:20:35,210
and they put two cassettes into the machine at the same time and they press

331
00:20:35,210 --> 00:20:39,050
the buttons simultaneously

332
00:20:39,130 --> 00:20:42,610
so that it records the interview, one goes to the interviewee and is

333
00:20:42,610 --> 00:20:46,200
solicited at once kept by the prosecution. None of that happened.

334
00:20:48,600 --> 00:20:52,200
It was well known that a large number of central London police

335
00:20:52,200 --> 00:20:56,040
stations had their own experts in creating verbals. A

336
00:20:56,040 --> 00:20:59,600
verbal is to create a confession that didn't

337
00:20:59,600 --> 00:21:02,360
exist. It never happened. And so

338
00:21:03,800 --> 00:21:07,200
it was quite shocking. I mean, I had clients who were beaten up. I had

339
00:21:07,200 --> 00:21:10,720
clients whose kids were taken into care to put pressure on them to

340
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:13,070
confess to things they hadn't done. It was.

341
00:21:14,350 --> 00:21:16,990
It was quite an eye opener. What was

342
00:21:18,270 --> 00:21:21,950
the most heinous example that you came

343
00:21:21,950 --> 00:21:25,430
across? I don't think I ever dealt with a case, a

344
00:21:25,430 --> 00:21:29,070
serious case like a murder or anything of that sort, where

345
00:21:29,070 --> 00:21:31,950
the evidence had been tampered with in the same way.

346
00:21:32,750 --> 00:21:36,590
Tended to be more simple cases. But also, I mean, I write

347
00:21:36,590 --> 00:21:40,030
about this in one of the books. There was a guy. Yeah, this is

348
00:21:40,740 --> 00:21:44,500
the fall guy. There was a chap. And this can all

349
00:21:44,500 --> 00:21:47,700
be checked. And I'd put a historical reference and references in the back of the

350
00:21:47,700 --> 00:21:51,140
book so you know where the truth is. This chap,

351
00:21:51,140 --> 00:21:54,500
Sergeant Pilcher, his name was,

352
00:21:54,820 --> 00:21:57,860
was selling licenses to commit crime.

353
00:21:58,420 --> 00:22:02,140
He was. He was a detective sergeant. He was the guy who

354
00:22:02,140 --> 00:22:05,850
actually planted the drugs on the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and then nicked them

355
00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:09,360
for possession of drugs. But he was

356
00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:13,360
granting licenses to commit crime to certain criminals on

357
00:22:13,360 --> 00:22:17,080
the basis that he would get 50% of the proceeds and that

358
00:22:17,080 --> 00:22:20,680
if they got caught, he and his other corrupt officers would

359
00:22:20,680 --> 00:22:24,000
make sure that the documents and the evidence got lost

360
00:22:24,720 --> 00:22:28,440
or they'd simply put them under pressure. They would say, look, you can't nick this

361
00:22:28,440 --> 00:22:32,280
guy. He's one of our grasses and we need an outside. So you're not

362
00:22:32,280 --> 00:22:36,030
going to proceed with this prosecution? That actually happened, Stuff like

363
00:22:36,030 --> 00:22:39,830
that actually happened. I've got hundreds of stories. I deal with

364
00:22:39,830 --> 00:22:43,670
them in the books. Right. So it's

365
00:22:43,670 --> 00:22:47,510
not surprising that you have what you might Call and still do

366
00:22:47,510 --> 00:22:51,230
have a jaundiced view of Her Majesty's police

367
00:22:51,230 --> 00:22:54,950
force. Has it improved, do you think? Oh, absolutely, yes, it's improved a

368
00:22:54,950 --> 00:22:58,790
great deal. One of the problems at the time was that the only

369
00:22:59,510 --> 00:23:03,280
body that was authorized in law, by

370
00:23:03,280 --> 00:23:07,040
statute to investigate the Met, was the Met.

371
00:23:08,000 --> 00:23:11,840
So they could. And did it. They used to cover their trikes, used to

372
00:23:11,840 --> 00:23:14,960
protect their chums. There was no outside body looking in.

373
00:23:15,360 --> 00:23:19,040
Nowadays there is. And also all the

374
00:23:19,040 --> 00:23:21,360
procedures of what goes on in a police station.

375
00:23:22,640 --> 00:23:26,480
As you probably know, somebody who is being dealt with for a

376
00:23:26,480 --> 00:23:30,010
particular crime there, the people responsible for moving them from

377
00:23:30,650 --> 00:23:34,490
toilet to interview room, interview to cell and so on, they

378
00:23:34,490 --> 00:23:37,850
cannot be the officers actually involved with the case. You have

379
00:23:38,410 --> 00:23:41,930
somebody entirely separate and their movements throughout the

380
00:23:43,770 --> 00:23:47,450
police station are all logged and everything is recorded.

381
00:23:47,770 --> 00:23:51,530
So that's helped hugely. And as also. And

382
00:23:51,770 --> 00:23:54,970
the obvious endpoint of this is the

383
00:23:55,050 --> 00:23:58,810
uniform on cameras which record everything that's going

384
00:23:58,810 --> 00:24:00,700
on. So the

385
00:24:02,380 --> 00:24:06,020
widespread criminal corruption which usually

386
00:24:06,020 --> 00:24:08,860
involved money, has largely gone

387
00:24:09,500 --> 00:24:13,300
right. You do still get. Obviously, you still get bad apples,

388
00:24:13,300 --> 00:24:16,940
you know, police officers, as you do with lawyers and

389
00:24:17,020 --> 00:24:20,380
whatever. Did you ever come across. That's an interesting question, a corrupt

390
00:24:20,380 --> 00:24:23,900
barrister, where you. For some reason, you knew that he was

391
00:24:24,300 --> 00:24:28,060
being paid to do something he shouldn't have done, or argue something that

392
00:24:28,060 --> 00:24:31,900
he shouldn't have done. No, there was one. I won't give his name. I

393
00:24:31,900 --> 00:24:35,380
don't know if he's still alive. There was one who was disbarred and he makes

394
00:24:35,380 --> 00:24:38,620
an appearance under a pseudonym in one of my books

395
00:24:39,100 --> 00:24:42,900
and who was supposed to have been rather too close

396
00:24:42,900 --> 00:24:46,380
to the Kray twins. And there were a couple of others

397
00:24:46,540 --> 00:24:49,420
who got themselves suspended for periods for

398
00:24:50,060 --> 00:24:53,780
sharp practice, but who managed to rehabilitate

399
00:24:53,780 --> 00:24:57,250
themselves and had very good careers. But I think one of the

400
00:24:57,250 --> 00:25:00,930
reasons why it happens less at the bar than it

401
00:25:00,930 --> 00:25:04,210
does in other fields by the police, or, for that matter,

402
00:25:04,210 --> 00:25:07,450
solicitors, is that the bar is a very small

403
00:25:07,690 --> 00:25:11,450
profession. When I joined, there was only, I think, 8,000

404
00:25:11,610 --> 00:25:15,210
barristers and the vast majority of them all worked in London

405
00:25:15,690 --> 00:25:19,370
in the Inns of Court. Right. Everyone knew everyone

406
00:25:19,930 --> 00:25:23,570
and so you didn't have much, in a way, of provincial chambers

407
00:25:23,570 --> 00:25:27,250
and things like that. People used to travel up or what? No, in the

408
00:25:27,330 --> 00:25:30,610
early years, there were a couple of small

409
00:25:30,690 --> 00:25:34,370
sets outside of London, but they were looked down upon.

410
00:25:34,450 --> 00:25:37,970
They were considered to be the country cousins. And

411
00:25:38,290 --> 00:25:41,330
if you couldn't hack it in London, then you really weren't good enough.

412
00:25:42,050 --> 00:25:45,170
It's all changed now. The largest set in the country

413
00:25:45,650 --> 00:25:49,350
which I joined, Number Five Chambers started off in Birmingham,

414
00:25:49,350 --> 00:25:53,150
their principal office was in Birmingham. Right. But when I started,

415
00:25:54,110 --> 00:25:57,430
the people in London chambers are very snooty about

416
00:25:57,430 --> 00:26:01,150
annexes or about, you know, sets of chambers outside of

417
00:26:01,150 --> 00:26:04,030
London. They would, you know, these were the boys who couldn't really hack it, you

418
00:26:04,030 --> 00:26:07,790
know, the. And is that the kind of treatment

419
00:26:07,790 --> 00:26:11,590
you got because you joined Number five or not? No. Well,

420
00:26:11,590 --> 00:26:15,300
I, to an extent that it was the case.

421
00:26:15,300 --> 00:26:18,460
Although Number Five at that time was the largest set in,

422
00:26:18,780 --> 00:26:22,580
in England and was building a very, very strong

423
00:26:22,580 --> 00:26:26,060
reputation and now is one of the top sets in the country

424
00:26:26,220 --> 00:26:29,980
and some. It's won, you know, the Chambers of the Year award, I

425
00:26:29,980 --> 00:26:33,820
believe, more than once. Fantastic. So it's, it's, it's

426
00:26:33,820 --> 00:26:37,580
all changed and in fact it had to because the law

427
00:26:37,740 --> 00:26:41,540
doesn't only operate in London. Know there's major commercial centers

428
00:26:41,540 --> 00:26:45,380
in Leeds and Manchester and you know, Nottingham and so on. So

429
00:26:45,380 --> 00:26:48,940
they, they have a need for barristers locally

430
00:26:49,020 --> 00:26:51,580
because they don't want to have to drag their clients all the way down to

431
00:26:51,580 --> 00:26:55,180
London for conferences. That's understandable. So let me ask

432
00:26:55,180 --> 00:26:57,820
you this, which is, I think every,

433
00:26:58,700 --> 00:27:02,540
or, or surreptitiously everyone wants to ask and I,

434
00:27:02,540 --> 00:27:05,900
I wonder whether your kids or your partner have asked you

435
00:27:06,280 --> 00:27:10,120
what do you do as a barrister? Because I'd never really, once or twice

436
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:13,880
have I been sort of tangentially involved

437
00:27:14,280 --> 00:27:17,800
in talking to a defendant, a client defendant.

438
00:27:17,960 --> 00:27:21,800
But what do you do when you're absolutely bloody, you know, your,

439
00:27:21,879 --> 00:27:25,360
your gut tells you the guy is died in the wall, he did it. And

440
00:27:25,360 --> 00:27:29,200
he's like, no gov, that wasn't me. At what stage do

441
00:27:29,200 --> 00:27:32,970
you just feel unable to or does that not happen?

442
00:27:32,970 --> 00:27:36,770
You just put your game face on and you do what you got to do.

443
00:27:37,250 --> 00:27:41,050
Well, the short answer is read an honest man. And that tells

444
00:27:41,050 --> 00:27:44,850
you exactly what happens. And I'm very proud

445
00:27:44,850 --> 00:27:48,650
of that book. I get a lot of judges and barristers write to

446
00:27:48,650 --> 00:27:52,410
me saying, my God, you nailed what it's like being in the Old Bailey on

447
00:27:52,410 --> 00:27:56,050
a chop. Okay, give me a shortened version and I promise you we will all

448
00:27:56,130 --> 00:27:59,950
weigh and read it. Well, the short version is if they don't,

449
00:27:59,950 --> 00:28:03,790
unless they tell you, if they tell you they've done it, you're not allowed to

450
00:28:03,790 --> 00:28:07,510
put forward a not guilty plea to the court because that's misleading the court.

451
00:28:07,990 --> 00:28:11,630
You cannot be a party to misleading the court. But if

452
00:28:11,630 --> 00:28:15,470
you just strongly suspect, you are obliged to

453
00:28:15,470 --> 00:28:19,230
carry on with a not guilty plea for them because it's not

454
00:28:19,230 --> 00:28:22,870
your job to decide whether or not they're guilty. Your job is to be

455
00:28:22,870 --> 00:28:26,590
their mouthpiece, to put forward their story as well as can

456
00:28:26,590 --> 00:28:30,260
be done. I mean, there'll be many occasions where my client

457
00:28:30,260 --> 00:28:33,220
will give me a story and he will insist it's the truth. And I will

458
00:28:33,220 --> 00:28:37,020
say to him, well, I'm sorry, I don't believe it. It doesn't matter

459
00:28:37,020 --> 00:28:39,780
whether I believe it, but I'm telling you, I don't think the jury's going to

460
00:28:39,780 --> 00:28:43,580
believe that. Is that really what you want me to say? But if

461
00:28:43,660 --> 00:28:46,740
that's what he says and that's what his case is, I will go ahead and

462
00:28:46,740 --> 00:28:50,220
put it. There's such a thing. Sorry, there's such a.

463
00:28:50,460 --> 00:28:54,120
As the cab rank principle. Yeah. And that means you,

464
00:28:54,120 --> 00:28:57,760
if, if a brief comes to you and it's appropriately marked with a fee and

465
00:28:57,760 --> 00:29:01,600
it's within your field, you have to take it. You have to take. And though

466
00:29:01,600 --> 00:29:05,440
it's been weakened in certain areas, when it comes to crime, it's still

467
00:29:05,440 --> 00:29:08,600
there. So am I right in saying that

468
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:12,120
in the criminal. At the Criminal Bar,

469
00:29:12,920 --> 00:29:16,520
you never, ever asked a client, did you do it? It's like

470
00:29:16,600 --> 00:29:20,080
the number one criminal barristerial

471
00:29:20,160 --> 00:29:23,960
practice. Number one, never ask the question, did you or didn't

472
00:29:23,960 --> 00:29:27,520
you commit this offence? No, I do ask, and I believe

473
00:29:27,680 --> 00:29:31,480
most barristers do, I mean, if they are concerned, if

474
00:29:31,480 --> 00:29:35,200
they're concerned about it. What you do is you

475
00:29:35,200 --> 00:29:38,560
get the prosecution depositions or a state, which is

476
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:42,400
statements, and you run through them with your client,

477
00:29:42,720 --> 00:29:46,510
asking them when they are, you know, if they're literate, to annotate them

478
00:29:46,590 --> 00:29:50,310
where they agree, where they don't agree, where that wasn't said or

479
00:29:50,310 --> 00:29:53,710
that was said but needs to be explained and so on. So you get

480
00:29:53,950 --> 00:29:57,790
their detailed instructions on what is being said and in a

481
00:29:57,790 --> 00:30:01,390
way, and you can't avoid asking them whether they did it or not,

482
00:30:01,950 --> 00:30:05,710
which is interesting because I've just spent a month in Massachusetts, I've

483
00:30:05,710 --> 00:30:09,190
just been commissioned to write a multi book series about an English

484
00:30:09,190 --> 00:30:12,710
barrister transplanted to Massachusetts, the Cape

485
00:30:12,710 --> 00:30:16,560
Cod. And I followed an attorney around for

486
00:30:16,560 --> 00:30:19,720
a month and met all the judges and went down the steps and so on.

487
00:30:20,680 --> 00:30:23,720
And the attorney who I was with, who is in fact the

488
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:28,200
president of the Bar association in Barnstaple county,

489
00:30:28,200 --> 00:30:31,880
said, we never ask them whether they did it.

490
00:30:32,200 --> 00:30:35,760
And he said, it is very, very unusual that we ever call

491
00:30:35,760 --> 00:30:39,480
our clients. Our job here is to

492
00:30:39,480 --> 00:30:43,320
destroy the defense, the prosecution's case. That's why we have our

493
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,800
own private investigators. And so on our job is to destroy the prosecution

494
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:50,560
case so that they cannot make beyond reasonable doubt.

495
00:30:50,640 --> 00:30:54,320
But he said, it's very, very rare for me to have a

496
00:30:54,320 --> 00:30:58,040
call your client. So there's a. Apart from that, did you

497
00:30:58,040 --> 00:31:01,720
pick up any other really stark

498
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:05,320
differences? Don't ever ask the client whether he did it or

499
00:31:05,320 --> 00:31:09,170
not. You very rarely call them. I

500
00:31:09,170 --> 00:31:12,970
mean, you both have in common. Destroy the prosecution case. Is there anything else

501
00:31:12,970 --> 00:31:16,770
you came across that you felt was interesting? Yeah, there

502
00:31:16,770 --> 00:31:20,330
was. The thing that struck me more forcibly than anything

503
00:31:20,330 --> 00:31:23,770
else in the Massachusetts courts was that the

504
00:31:23,770 --> 00:31:26,650
lower courts, it is bloody

505
00:31:26,650 --> 00:31:30,370
pandemonium. I am used to there being a

506
00:31:30,370 --> 00:31:34,050
certain gravitas, a certain dignity in our courts. Even in the

507
00:31:34,050 --> 00:31:37,640
magistrates court, only one person speaks at a time. You

508
00:31:37,640 --> 00:31:41,440
stand up to talk to the bench or the stipe. You sit

509
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:45,240
down again. When you've finished, you let your opponent do the same. In the

510
00:31:45,240 --> 00:31:48,920
courts there, it's like Piccadilly

511
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:52,480
Circus. There'll be people at the probation table all chatting,

512
00:31:52,560 --> 00:31:56,400
going through files. The judge will be talking to his

513
00:31:56,400 --> 00:32:00,000
clerk, the barrister, the attorneys will be talking to their

514
00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:03,600
clients. People are coming in and going out the whole time. It is.

515
00:32:05,050 --> 00:32:08,570
And to my eye, I found it very difficult for the first few

516
00:32:08,650 --> 00:32:12,290
days to work out what on earth was going on, because a

517
00:32:12,290 --> 00:32:15,970
judge seemed to be dealing with cases and they call

518
00:32:15,970 --> 00:32:19,729
them the docket numbers and they call people up and they disappear and they come

519
00:32:19,729 --> 00:32:23,370
back again. There are three or four court officials

520
00:32:23,690 --> 00:32:27,530
in uniform, very often carrying guns and

521
00:32:27,690 --> 00:32:31,350
handcuffs and pepper spray and walkie talkies.

522
00:32:31,670 --> 00:32:35,470
One will be on his walkie talkie talking to somebody down in the cells. Another

523
00:32:35,470 --> 00:32:39,230
one will be playing around on a laptop. Another one

524
00:32:39,230 --> 00:32:42,710
will be escorting someone. It's just pandemonium.

525
00:32:43,990 --> 00:32:47,790
But they really get through work. I mean, the idea

526
00:32:47,790 --> 00:32:50,310
of beautifully crafted

527
00:32:51,350 --> 00:32:55,150
sentences by wealth advocacy, forget it. It's

528
00:32:55,150 --> 00:32:58,790
all. And there was one attorney who I met several times.

529
00:32:58,870 --> 00:33:02,720
He wore a crumpled suit, sneakers

530
00:33:02,720 --> 00:33:06,160
and no socks, and he's wandering around the court, the well of the court, with

531
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:09,480
his hands in his pockets, talking to the judge and then turning to talk to

532
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,200
his client, and then talking to the judge and turning. I'd never

533
00:33:13,200 --> 00:33:16,959
seen anything like it. Unbelievable. Did any of the judges

534
00:33:16,959 --> 00:33:20,720
you come across say, who's that strange gentleman? Or they were completely

535
00:33:20,720 --> 00:33:24,520
and utterly just, you know, distracted by what else

536
00:33:24,520 --> 00:33:28,160
was going on. I had taken a suit with me because I thought, well, I

537
00:33:28,160 --> 00:33:31,880
knew I'm gonna be in court. And a suit and some clean new shirts

538
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:35,540
and some ties. I was better dressed than the vast majority of people in the

539
00:33:35,540 --> 00:33:38,580
court, and people were looking at me thinking, who the hell is that guy?

540
00:33:39,380 --> 00:33:43,060
But usually the attorney who I was with, who was an

541
00:33:43,060 --> 00:33:46,500
absolute charmer, he was a wonderful chap, he would take me

542
00:33:46,500 --> 00:33:50,300
backstage to meet the judges afterwards, all of whom were delighted

543
00:33:50,300 --> 00:33:54,020
to meet me, and they asked these sorts of questions. And of

544
00:33:54,020 --> 00:33:57,820
course, they're political appointees in the States, aren't they? Yeah,

545
00:33:57,820 --> 00:34:00,810
they're voted into office. They voted in, yeah.

546
00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:04,480
Which. Is that a good idea, do you think? What's your sense of that? Well,

547
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:06,160
what do you think? Yeah,

548
00:34:10,000 --> 00:34:13,760
I don't know. The Supreme Court, I guess. But

549
00:34:13,760 --> 00:34:16,919
anyway, so coming back to good old

550
00:34:16,919 --> 00:34:20,680
Blighty, I guess it. It must. I mean, it's been a

551
00:34:20,680 --> 00:34:24,320
while since you were in the cut and

552
00:34:24,320 --> 00:34:27,560
thrust of the criminal bar, but even

553
00:34:28,120 --> 00:34:31,800
so, it sounds as if it was just like being

554
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:35,600
thrown into a bit of a lunatic's asylum and trying

555
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:39,400
to figure out exactly who were the man, who were the.

556
00:34:39,720 --> 00:34:42,840
The patients and who were the jailers, as it were.

557
00:34:43,320 --> 00:34:46,760
Did you ever. When you were at the bar in the uk,

558
00:34:47,320 --> 00:34:51,120
did you ever have a police station experience? Were you

559
00:34:51,120 --> 00:34:54,520
ever the guy that the client called and said, don't worry, I'll meet you down

560
00:34:55,059 --> 00:34:58,899
at. And you had to engage with the staff sergeant or whatever?

561
00:34:58,899 --> 00:35:02,259
Yes, very infrequently. But it did happen that

562
00:35:02,579 --> 00:35:05,939
certain firms of solicitors would have arrangements with chambers

563
00:35:05,939 --> 00:35:09,139
whereby when they couldn't cover a police station

564
00:35:09,379 --> 00:35:12,819
attendance, they would ask one of the pupils to go. Right.

565
00:35:12,979 --> 00:35:15,859
That happened to me on maybe half a dozen

566
00:35:16,499 --> 00:35:20,259
occasions. One of them was very memorable, actually, because I

567
00:35:20,259 --> 00:35:23,779
was asked to go down to Bow Street Magistrates Court on a Friday evening

568
00:35:24,430 --> 00:35:28,190
to meet some client. I think it was Bow Street. Yes, it

569
00:35:28,190 --> 00:35:31,950
was Bow street, because the smell. I still remember the smell. I

570
00:35:31,950 --> 00:35:34,750
don't. You've probably not been down in the cells at Bow Street.

571
00:35:36,110 --> 00:35:39,790
No. Well, it's very old

572
00:35:39,870 --> 00:35:43,710
sewage systems and so it's when you then

573
00:35:43,710 --> 00:35:47,510
descend the steps and it's a bit like sort of wading

574
00:35:47,510 --> 00:35:50,830
through Brown Windsor soup. It's really not very pleasant. Anyway,

575
00:35:51,220 --> 00:35:55,060
and this. This chap who I'd never met before, it was a lunatic,

576
00:35:55,060 --> 00:35:58,180
he insisted that I got down on my knees and prayed with him. He had

577
00:35:58,180 --> 00:36:01,940
a copy of the Bible with him. It was heavily annotated, all around the

578
00:36:01,940 --> 00:36:05,620
margins of the top. You know, he'd got pencil commentary

579
00:36:05,620 --> 00:36:09,460
on it, so he was obviously a bit of a nutcase. And I got locked

580
00:36:09,460 --> 00:36:12,820
into the cell with him because there was no available conference rooms.

581
00:36:13,620 --> 00:36:17,220
And I've never forgotten that. It wasn't a big

582
00:36:17,220 --> 00:36:20,670
guy, but he was, he was charged with some offensive

583
00:36:20,750 --> 00:36:24,470
violence. I can't remember what it was now to be honest, but I was very

584
00:36:24,470 --> 00:36:28,310
young and quite terrified. And when he said that he

585
00:36:28,310 --> 00:36:32,030
wanted me to get down on my knees with him and pray I did.

586
00:36:37,150 --> 00:36:40,910
So let's talk a bit about. I think it was your first

587
00:36:40,910 --> 00:36:44,630
book, Cutthroat, wasn't it? Well, yes, I don't often talk

588
00:36:44,630 --> 00:36:48,470
about that because it's a rather plural version of the

589
00:36:48,470 --> 00:36:51,910
one that I wrote as the beginning of the current series. What happened was that

590
00:36:51,910 --> 00:36:55,590
came out in the 80s, writing for 25

591
00:36:55,590 --> 00:36:59,430
years or so for reasons that needn't concern

592
00:36:59,430 --> 00:37:03,150
us today. But when I picked up the career again, I read that

593
00:37:03,150 --> 00:37:06,710
book and thought that could probably be the beginning of a series.

594
00:37:07,110 --> 00:37:10,670
So I rewrote it, I re edited it, I basically made it a better

595
00:37:10,670 --> 00:37:14,510
book. And so that became the Brief, which is the

596
00:37:14,510 --> 00:37:18,210
first one in the 11 book series. So I

597
00:37:18,210 --> 00:37:21,970
don't talk much about the, the Cutthroat. I feel it's a bit unfair on

598
00:37:21,970 --> 00:37:25,770
my, on my fan base. If they've read all the, the Brief,

599
00:37:26,090 --> 00:37:29,850
I don't think it's fair they should go back and read a. A less than

600
00:37:30,570 --> 00:37:34,290
a poorer quality version called the Cutthroat. But

601
00:37:34,290 --> 00:37:38,010
it, that was, that was my second book. So in other words,

602
00:37:38,010 --> 00:37:40,730
you're not going to give me a free copy to read. It's like one of

603
00:37:40,730 --> 00:37:43,790
those things that you feel should be consigned to history.

604
00:37:44,190 --> 00:37:47,670
Exactly. So. Exactly. Anyway, you can't get it. It's out of print. I suppose you

605
00:37:47,670 --> 00:37:51,430
probably can get it on the, on the Internet. Yes, I shall attempt to

606
00:37:51,430 --> 00:37:55,030
do it because it's now a challenge. But, but let's talk

607
00:37:55,030 --> 00:37:58,550
about the underlying defense tactic of

608
00:37:58,550 --> 00:38:02,230
Cutthroat rather than necessarily the

609
00:38:02,230 --> 00:38:05,470
story around it. It's a, it's a really

610
00:38:06,030 --> 00:38:09,790
probably for me as a civil lawyer, one of the most interesting and

611
00:38:09,790 --> 00:38:13,270
challenging defenses available

612
00:38:13,350 --> 00:38:16,990
because it seems to me either way the two or

613
00:38:16,990 --> 00:38:20,470
whoever manages can only be done with two. Has it got to be, he'd said,

614
00:38:20,470 --> 00:38:23,150
she said. Or can be done with a group. It can be done with a

615
00:38:23,150 --> 00:38:26,950
group. I've never heard of it done with a group. It would create certain

616
00:38:27,110 --> 00:38:30,550
logistical issues. But it's a case, correct? It's okay.

617
00:38:30,950 --> 00:38:34,710
All you need is for the prosecution to be certain

618
00:38:34,710 --> 00:38:38,350
that one of the two or more people did the

619
00:38:38,350 --> 00:38:42,070
deed. But they can't prove which. But they can say

620
00:38:42,070 --> 00:38:45,870
to the jury, you can be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that one of them

621
00:38:45,870 --> 00:38:49,510
did. Now if the jury can't sort that out. They both have to

622
00:38:49,510 --> 00:38:53,230
be acquitted. But usually when a cutthroat

623
00:38:53,230 --> 00:38:56,750
defence occurs, each of them is blaming the other and

624
00:38:56,750 --> 00:39:00,110
usually the mud slung by one of them sticks better than the mud slung by

625
00:39:00,110 --> 00:39:03,710
the other. And the jury comes to the conclusion that one of them did it.

626
00:39:04,580 --> 00:39:08,180
So, you know, the next question has got to be, how many times were you

627
00:39:08,180 --> 00:39:11,340
involved in a cutthroat defense scenario? Very

628
00:39:11,340 --> 00:39:15,100
infrequently. That's one of the reasons I wrote the book, because

629
00:39:15,100 --> 00:39:18,340
it was such an unusual situation. It was a case of

630
00:39:18,740 --> 00:39:21,860
some. It was a robbery on

631
00:39:22,500 --> 00:39:25,300
a security van that was delivering money.

632
00:39:26,580 --> 00:39:30,260
One of the two people involved took a real gun and one

633
00:39:30,770 --> 00:39:34,050
didn't. And they each said, no, it wasn't me, it was him.

634
00:39:34,770 --> 00:39:38,410
And so because it was an unusual case, that's why I decided to use it

635
00:39:38,410 --> 00:39:42,050
as the basis for the book. I can't actually think

636
00:39:42,370 --> 00:39:45,810
of any other case that I did during the course of my

637
00:39:45,810 --> 00:39:49,090
career in crime that had the same factual

638
00:39:49,090 --> 00:39:52,810
matrix. And by definition, and maybe it's still

639
00:39:52,810 --> 00:39:56,370
the case, I assumed that no firearms were discharged.

640
00:39:56,610 --> 00:40:00,370
Oh, yeah, no, the firearms were discharged and someone died.

641
00:40:00,870 --> 00:40:04,510
Oh, and someone died. Sorry. So I didn't get. So it was rather

642
00:40:04,510 --> 00:40:08,110
important that the jury fixated or

643
00:40:08,110 --> 00:40:11,270
were confident that somebody to take the rat for a.

644
00:40:11,990 --> 00:40:15,750
Would it be. Would it have been a aggravated manslaughter kind

645
00:40:15,750 --> 00:40:19,270
of stuff, or what Charged. Who knows? Charges murder, but

646
00:40:19,510 --> 00:40:23,190
murder? A man was dead and someone took a firearm and fired it. So

647
00:40:23,590 --> 00:40:27,280
usually means that that's enough to prove intent. It usually.

648
00:40:27,360 --> 00:40:31,000
Or it should be. So what was the trigger point in

649
00:40:31,000 --> 00:40:34,800
that? Were you the guy that called it first, as it were,

650
00:40:34,800 --> 00:40:38,440
or was it the barrister for the other defendant that called it

651
00:40:38,440 --> 00:40:41,760
first? Well, that's interesting, because what originally

652
00:40:41,760 --> 00:40:45,120
happened is they each said that an alleged

653
00:40:45,280 --> 00:40:48,960
third person had the gun and had

654
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:52,770
they both stuck to that story, they might both have been

655
00:40:52,770 --> 00:40:56,250
acquitted. But one of them did a deal with the police

656
00:40:56,890 --> 00:41:00,410
and gave them a lot of information about other crimes which

657
00:41:00,490 --> 00:41:04,130
persuaded the police that they were talking to the honest

658
00:41:04,130 --> 00:41:07,210
man of the two. And so

659
00:41:07,850 --> 00:41:11,330
he then went Queen's evidence. The police

660
00:41:11,330 --> 00:41:15,090
accepted his plea to a lesser charge and he gave evidence

661
00:41:15,090 --> 00:41:18,900
for the Crown against my client, who said

662
00:41:18,900 --> 00:41:22,220
he'd only been the getaway driver and had never handled gun at all.

663
00:41:22,940 --> 00:41:26,740
So that's how that one came out. But under normal circumstances, you

664
00:41:26,740 --> 00:41:30,060
can. And these are great fun to prosecute if you're prosecuting,

665
00:41:30,540 --> 00:41:33,900
because you, you know, you call it. You're

666
00:41:33,900 --> 00:41:37,700
quidzine Aren't you? You're quidzin. You can just put them in the witness

667
00:41:37,700 --> 00:41:41,140
box and let them fight it out between the two of them. Exactly. And of

668
00:41:41,140 --> 00:41:44,820
course, when you think about the overall impact with the cutthroat

669
00:41:44,820 --> 00:41:48,650
defense, either way, someone is going to

670
00:41:48,650 --> 00:41:52,450
get the rap. Maybe deserved, maybe not. But then they've

671
00:41:52,450 --> 00:41:54,810
probably made an enemy. The person that

672
00:41:56,250 --> 00:42:00,090
wasn't convicted of that particular offense has made an enemy for

673
00:42:00,090 --> 00:42:03,050
life. And you wouldn't want to bet

674
00:42:03,690 --> 00:42:07,490
too heavily on their prospects of surviving if they went into the same

675
00:42:07,490 --> 00:42:10,170
prison, would you? But I guess that's another story.

676
00:42:11,370 --> 00:42:15,220
So, cutthroat defense, what about

677
00:42:15,620 --> 00:42:19,460
lying and telling the truth? That's, of course, at the heart of

678
00:42:19,860 --> 00:42:23,620
almost every aspect of law, but in criminal law,

679
00:42:23,620 --> 00:42:27,140
it has rather more significance on the outcome than in

680
00:42:27,140 --> 00:42:30,980
civil cases. How did you. Did you

681
00:42:30,980 --> 00:42:34,580
become really good at detecting yourself, whether

682
00:42:34,580 --> 00:42:38,100
both a client and. Or the police or anyone, a

683
00:42:38,100 --> 00:42:41,740
witness was actually telling you? A bunch of.

684
00:42:41,980 --> 00:42:45,820
Of manure? Yeah, I. I think most. Well, I don't know.

685
00:42:45,900 --> 00:42:49,620
I think most barristers begin after some time to

686
00:42:49,620 --> 00:42:53,260
get a sense. I mean, I. No one's infallible. Some

687
00:42:53,260 --> 00:42:56,980
people, extremely good liars and sociopaths and so

688
00:42:56,980 --> 00:43:00,820
forth, they. They can lie with incredible facility and

689
00:43:00,820 --> 00:43:04,460
you don't know and there are no tells. But

690
00:43:04,460 --> 00:43:06,780
in the case of. Of most people, yes,

691
00:43:08,270 --> 00:43:12,070
I could usually know whether or not they were lying

692
00:43:12,070 --> 00:43:15,870
to me and I don't know whether. I'm not entirely sure if it's even

693
00:43:16,190 --> 00:43:19,630
conscious, but I think subconsciously you pick up on

694
00:43:19,870 --> 00:43:23,670
people the way their body language, the

695
00:43:23,670 --> 00:43:26,750
way in which they don't look at you directly, or their eyes flick off to

696
00:43:26,750 --> 00:43:30,590
one side before they answer, or a certain hesitation

697
00:43:30,590 --> 00:43:34,030
which doesn't belong there. So I do think that I got

698
00:43:34,290 --> 00:43:37,890
pretty good at deciding when people were lying to me, both

699
00:43:37,890 --> 00:43:41,570
incidentally, doing the crime and later

700
00:43:41,570 --> 00:43:45,170
when I did a lot of professional negligence, especially medical negligence,

701
00:43:45,410 --> 00:43:49,090
there was enormous amount of, in my day, covering up

702
00:43:49,090 --> 00:43:52,850
by the medical profession when one of their brethren was being

703
00:43:52,850 --> 00:43:55,810
accused. Fortunately, things are beginning to change.

704
00:43:56,530 --> 00:43:59,730
And the duty of candor and the fact that the hospital

705
00:43:59,730 --> 00:44:03,570
trusts want to learn from accidents rather than just bury them.

706
00:44:04,200 --> 00:44:07,920
And although, as you know from listening to the news, this stuff

707
00:44:07,920 --> 00:44:11,200
still happens. You know, there are departments which are deeply

708
00:44:11,200 --> 00:44:14,960
dysfunctional and where people are busy

709
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:18,640
covering up the truth. But I found that the skills that I

710
00:44:18,640 --> 00:44:21,920
developed as a criminal barrister were very

711
00:44:21,920 --> 00:44:25,720
useful when dealing with certain civil cases

712
00:44:25,720 --> 00:44:29,360
where I knew someone was lying, where the DOT records did not match up

713
00:44:29,360 --> 00:44:32,600
with what the evidence. Well, that Advocacy, that cross

714
00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:36,190
examination experience must have been invaluable. Yeah,

715
00:44:36,510 --> 00:44:40,230
it is. And I sometimes am astonished at the way in which

716
00:44:40,230 --> 00:44:43,390
my career, my. Now my career as an author

717
00:44:43,950 --> 00:44:47,790
has developed as a result of what appeared at the time

718
00:44:47,790 --> 00:44:51,230
to be unrelated accidents. You know, I did a lot of criminal work

719
00:44:51,469 --> 00:44:55,310
which wasn't my first choice career, but it has provided the foundations

720
00:44:55,310 --> 00:44:58,950
and the knowledge of the human psyche which

721
00:44:58,950 --> 00:45:01,470
now supports the books that I wrote. Yes,

722
00:45:02,770 --> 00:45:06,450
all good things come to those who wait, Simon. So clearly you are

723
00:45:06,450 --> 00:45:10,170
now receiving the dividend. Were you ever in a

724
00:45:10,170 --> 00:45:13,770
situation which we see sometimes on this great old

725
00:45:13,770 --> 00:45:17,609
Hollywood screen of ours where the client comes in,

726
00:45:17,609 --> 00:45:21,170
you, you found, or they found a witness

727
00:45:21,890 --> 00:45:25,090
and the judge found in your favor

728
00:45:25,490 --> 00:45:29,310
and then it all the, the cobwebs fall and

729
00:45:29,310 --> 00:45:32,790
you see, the client turns around and says, that was a great job,

730
00:45:32,790 --> 00:45:36,270
Simon. And we all know that that was me. Or

731
00:45:36,430 --> 00:45:40,030
something occurred and you realized, oh my God, here's a serial

732
00:45:40,350 --> 00:45:43,630
crook who has played the system and won.

733
00:45:44,270 --> 00:45:47,150
I refer my learned friend to my previous answer.

734
00:45:48,830 --> 00:45:52,270
That is in an honest man. That's exactly the sort of situation

735
00:45:52,350 --> 00:45:55,790
that my hero encounters where

736
00:45:56,270 --> 00:45:59,710
he has believed in the innocence of his client until a certain

737
00:45:59,870 --> 00:46:03,590
moment and then suddenly realizes that he has been

738
00:46:03,590 --> 00:46:07,230
hoodwinked. All right, so if I am going

739
00:46:07,230 --> 00:46:10,510
to assume that that story

740
00:46:10,750 --> 00:46:14,110
was based on personal experience, then we have to read that book

741
00:46:14,350 --> 00:46:18,190
to know the answer to my question. Correct? Yes. Yes. I mean,

742
00:46:18,190 --> 00:46:21,950
look, it does happen. It does, and I think it must happen to all barristers

743
00:46:22,190 --> 00:46:25,070
because you take your client's instructions, you put the case forward.

744
00:46:25,790 --> 00:46:29,070
Sometimes the prosecution evidence just isn't sufficient

745
00:46:29,950 --> 00:46:33,710
for a conviction and you persuade the jury of that. That doesn't mean your client

746
00:46:33,710 --> 00:46:36,830
didn't do it, it just means that the prosecution evidence isn't good enough.

747
00:46:37,470 --> 00:46:40,830
And so you do walk away thinking, ah, he did it,

748
00:46:40,990 --> 00:46:44,590
but the evidence wasn't there and therefore he was appropriately acquitted.

749
00:46:45,070 --> 00:46:47,710
Yes. So unsurprisingly

750
00:46:49,550 --> 00:46:52,670
for the particular combination of two

751
00:46:53,390 --> 00:46:57,110
sort of died in the war. Lawyers. But you are

752
00:46:57,110 --> 00:47:00,830
a convert, an author. Now, I've spent

753
00:47:01,070 --> 00:47:04,870
so much time on the, on the historical side of

754
00:47:04,870 --> 00:47:08,670
things, but I want to ask you, and who knows, I may be lucky

755
00:47:08,670 --> 00:47:12,190
enough to, to attract you back on to talk in more depth about

756
00:47:12,190 --> 00:47:15,950
the 13 or 16 books you've read, you've written.

757
00:47:16,430 --> 00:47:20,260
But one of the things that, again, a number

758
00:47:20,260 --> 00:47:23,780
of people, and I'm sure every, every criminal lawyer,

759
00:47:23,780 --> 00:47:27,260
certainly, and many civil lawyers, if they've been around long enough, always think they've got

760
00:47:27,260 --> 00:47:30,900
a book in them or at least one book in them. And

761
00:47:31,540 --> 00:47:35,300
I have to confess, probably the first time on podcast that

762
00:47:35,300 --> 00:47:38,340
I have sat down a couple of times in my life and tried to,

763
00:47:38,900 --> 00:47:42,660
to sketch out the, the framework of a book.

764
00:47:43,140 --> 00:47:46,900
And of course it never happens. I get distracted, I get

765
00:47:46,900 --> 00:47:50,540
disenchanted. How long did it take you? I know the first

766
00:47:50,620 --> 00:47:54,380
attempt you were not that pleased with, but how long did it

767
00:47:54,380 --> 00:47:57,900
take you to get from sitting down at the

768
00:47:57,900 --> 00:48:01,420
computer, which I guess you were using by the time you had left

769
00:48:01,420 --> 00:48:05,100
the professional negligence bar from the point

770
00:48:05,100 --> 00:48:08,700
of time of I'm going to write this and then it's on the shelf.

771
00:48:09,020 --> 00:48:12,780
Oh, well, the on the shelf bit is

772
00:48:14,510 --> 00:48:18,270
not under your control. Let's say finish the book. Yeah. So to write that,

773
00:48:18,270 --> 00:48:22,070
that is very much a variable feast. I, I, the, the shortest

774
00:48:22,070 --> 00:48:25,550
period of time it has taken me to write a book is about four months.

775
00:48:26,910 --> 00:48:30,590
And that's when the story arrives in your head or you're given it, you know,

776
00:48:30,590 --> 00:48:34,390
completely entire. And so it's essentially a case of getting out

777
00:48:34,390 --> 00:48:37,630
of the way of, of the writing because it just wants to write itself.

778
00:48:38,430 --> 00:48:41,270
On the other hand, and is that, is that eight to ten hours a day?

779
00:48:41,270 --> 00:48:43,870
What kind of work regime is that, Simon?

780
00:48:44,990 --> 00:48:48,750
When it's going well, I can certainly write for seven or eight

781
00:48:48,750 --> 00:48:52,430
hours a day. And because I dictate into the computer

782
00:48:52,430 --> 00:48:56,150
rather than write by hand or type. Okay, I don't type.

783
00:48:56,150 --> 00:48:59,990
My typing is terrible. It was two fingers at its best.

784
00:48:59,990 --> 00:49:03,390
And they. And have you always done it by dictation? Yes,

785
00:49:03,550 --> 00:49:07,150
always. And so because I do that,

786
00:49:08,030 --> 00:49:11,510
and once I know where I'm going with the book, I can easily write 3,000

787
00:49:11,510 --> 00:49:15,360
or 4,000 words a day. So you see that that doesn't take long

788
00:49:15,360 --> 00:49:19,120
if you keep up that pace. On the other hand, the book of which I

789
00:49:19,120 --> 00:49:22,920
am most proud took me in nearly a year to try

790
00:49:22,920 --> 00:49:26,480
and make the plot work properly. And

791
00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:30,240
the writing process was easy, but I'd get stymied. I'd suddenly think,

792
00:49:30,240 --> 00:49:33,760
ah, no, that's not gonna work. And then I would spend several

793
00:49:33,760 --> 00:49:37,480
weeks, very grumpy, sort of stomping around the

794
00:49:37,480 --> 00:49:40,400
house and complaining that I can't make the damn thing work, and going out for

795
00:49:40,400 --> 00:49:44,200
walks and watching silly films and, and scrolling on my phone because I can't

796
00:49:44,200 --> 00:49:47,760
make it work. And then suddenly the logjam moves and

797
00:49:47,760 --> 00:49:51,520
I'm busy. So which book was that? Which one is the year Odyssey?

798
00:49:51,520 --> 00:49:55,280
The. It's called Death Adjourned. And it's about, it's

799
00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:58,400
about. You probably remember a chap Called Rachman the

800
00:49:58,800 --> 00:50:02,640
slum. Yes, the landlord. Yeah, the slum landlord. Yeah. But based

801
00:50:02,640 --> 00:50:06,360
on. It's not based on him, but it's based on the circumstances and

802
00:50:06,360 --> 00:50:08,480
it's based on another slum landlord who is

803
00:50:10,470 --> 00:50:14,310
killing people to clear them. To clear his buildings. Clear

804
00:50:14,310 --> 00:50:17,870
his buildings. And it also deals with the after effects

805
00:50:17,870 --> 00:50:21,670
of the Holocaust on the next generation. And I'm

806
00:50:21,670 --> 00:50:25,510
very proud of the book because it deals with more than just the crime

807
00:50:25,590 --> 00:50:29,350
involved. But it took a very long time to write that to make the

808
00:50:29,350 --> 00:50:32,910
plot work properly. But according to the reviewers,

809
00:50:32,910 --> 00:50:36,470
it's my best book in terms of. It's got. I think it's got an average

810
00:50:38,210 --> 00:50:41,890
4.9 star rating out of five on audible

811
00:50:42,130 --> 00:50:44,770
and I think 4.7 or 4.8 on

812
00:50:45,890 --> 00:50:49,490
Amazon. And how do you choose, or do the publishers choose who

813
00:50:49,490 --> 00:50:53,329
reads your books on Audibles? Well, people

814
00:50:53,329 --> 00:50:56,850
sign up for an Audible. No, sorry, sorry, I'm going bonkers.

815
00:50:56,930 --> 00:51:00,530
Who is the person that narrates? I should have said the book. So

816
00:51:00,770 --> 00:51:04,170
in this case, I was very fortunate when my original

817
00:51:04,170 --> 00:51:07,970
publishers of the first two books in this series went bust. Before they

818
00:51:07,970 --> 00:51:11,610
went bust, they had taken. They had sold the rights, the Audible rights, the first

819
00:51:11,610 --> 00:51:15,370
two books. And Audible UK got a chap called

820
00:51:15,370 --> 00:51:19,210
Colin Mace to do. Right. And Colin is a very good

821
00:51:19,210 --> 00:51:22,930
actor. But unfortunately, when that company went bust, I had

822
00:51:22,930 --> 00:51:26,770
no rights to. I mean, I couldn't get the rights back. He'd. The publishers had

823
00:51:26,770 --> 00:51:30,130
sold them for seven years and I couldn't get the rights back. But I was

824
00:51:30,130 --> 00:51:33,450
eventually able to track down Colin Mace and say to him,

825
00:51:34,110 --> 00:51:37,870
would you be prepared to narrate the rest of the

826
00:51:37,870 --> 00:51:41,710
series? And he happily said yes. And

827
00:51:41,710 --> 00:51:45,310
we went into a deal. I couldn't afford to pay him because I didn't have.

828
00:51:45,710 --> 00:51:49,270
It's very expensive to pay someone to do that. But we

829
00:51:49,270 --> 00:51:52,670
entered into a deal on the royalties and so he does them on spec and

830
00:51:52,670 --> 00:51:55,870
he makes quite a bit of money out of the royalties. And

831
00:51:56,590 --> 00:52:00,350
he is wonderful, if any of your. And he's narrated all

832
00:52:00,350 --> 00:52:03,880
of your Holborn books. Has he? Yeah. Excellent. And he's

833
00:52:03,880 --> 00:52:07,080
excellent. And the reviews I get

834
00:52:07,800 --> 00:52:11,480
are. They all mention him as well as the writing. But the

835
00:52:11,480 --> 00:52:14,440
one thing I did notice, because, as you know,

836
00:52:15,000 --> 00:52:18,040
your literary agent was kind enough to send me

837
00:52:18,680 --> 00:52:22,280
an Audible version of the French Vendetta. Ah.

838
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:26,000
Did you listen to it? And I am. I'm in the middle of listening to

839
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:29,000
it. And one of the things that struck me is that

840
00:52:29,720 --> 00:52:33,320
he. Not so subtly, but when

841
00:52:33,320 --> 00:52:37,120
he's talking and it Is a Lady Isabella playing

842
00:52:37,120 --> 00:52:40,920
the part or whatever. He becomes gentle and timid

843
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:45,080
and then his French accent gets a little bit more robust

844
00:52:45,080 --> 00:52:48,760
with somebody that's drunk. I mean, it really is an acting

845
00:52:49,080 --> 00:52:52,920
narrative exercise. And it was because not many

846
00:52:53,320 --> 00:52:57,000
of the books I've read are narrated in that way. They're mostly read

847
00:52:57,400 --> 00:53:00,620
in a pretty uniform manner. So I thought that was quite

848
00:53:00,620 --> 00:53:04,020
entertaining. Yeah, no, he's. He's wonderful. I'm

849
00:53:04,180 --> 00:53:07,940
very, very fortunate to have got him and. And I hope he'll stay with me

850
00:53:07,940 --> 00:53:10,940
for as long as I carry on writing the Holborn series. I hope he'll carry

851
00:53:10,940 --> 00:53:14,740
on narrating them. He's a terrific actor and a very nice chat. It so

852
00:53:14,740 --> 00:53:18,540
happens, and I'm sure I know the answer to

853
00:53:18,540 --> 00:53:22,260
this, but have you got enough stories

854
00:53:22,260 --> 00:53:25,900
for another hundred books? Is that the reality?

855
00:53:25,900 --> 00:53:29,300
You don't need to tap up an ex police detective or whatever

856
00:53:29,670 --> 00:53:33,150
and find out what's going on. You've got them all stored away, ready to give

857
00:53:33,150 --> 00:53:36,910
birth to them at a moment's notice. I have definitely one

858
00:53:36,910 --> 00:53:40,630
more at least, because I'm halfway through writing it. I

859
00:53:40,630 --> 00:53:44,470
don't know how many more I'm going to do because of this American

860
00:53:46,070 --> 00:53:49,790
contract I've just entered, which is

861
00:53:49,790 --> 00:53:51,750
very much better remunerated.

862
00:53:53,510 --> 00:53:57,190
It may be that I will move my focus to my English. It's called the

863
00:53:57,190 --> 00:54:00,940
English. There's. I think they call it the English Lawyer, something

864
00:54:00,940 --> 00:54:04,780
like that. I mean, when you're the writer, you get very little

865
00:54:04,780 --> 00:54:08,380
say over the. Over the COVID over the blurb,

866
00:54:08,380 --> 00:54:11,860
over the titles even. I mean, the bigger the publisher,

867
00:54:12,180 --> 00:54:14,180
the less control you have. I've got.

868
00:54:16,980 --> 00:54:20,540
They've suggested half a dozen titles and the publishers are saying, no, we're not like

869
00:54:20,540 --> 00:54:23,740
any of those. And is there. Is there a theme to this, like the

870
00:54:23,740 --> 00:54:27,460
Holborn movies or Holborn Books? Have they already decided

871
00:54:28,070 --> 00:54:31,830
for you? I want you to write about this character, Sam

872
00:54:31,830 --> 00:54:35,590
Spade, who does this, this and this. They gave me a sort

873
00:54:35,590 --> 00:54:38,430
of brief. They said, this is what we think would work, but change any part

874
00:54:38,430 --> 00:54:41,870
of it. You don't like. What they really wanted. They loved the

875
00:54:41,870 --> 00:54:44,950
idea of an English

876
00:54:44,950 --> 00:54:48,670
barrister as a fish out of water in a

877
00:54:48,670 --> 00:54:52,150
completely foreign cistern where he speaks the language, but he is

878
00:54:52,230 --> 00:54:56,070
lost in terms of procedure and so on. But it turns out that

879
00:54:56,070 --> 00:54:59,190
he is, in fact a brilliant advocate. So

880
00:54:59,910 --> 00:55:03,470
what happened was they had decided to take on a book I

881
00:55:03,470 --> 00:55:07,270
wrote, which is coming out at the end of this year under my pseudonym.

882
00:55:07,510 --> 00:55:11,270
It's a science fictiony, a speculative fiction Sort of book. And

883
00:55:11,270 --> 00:55:14,430
they really liked it. And they said, could we have 10 of those? And I

884
00:55:14,430 --> 00:55:18,110
said, no, there's not 10 of those in it. Maybe

885
00:55:18,110 --> 00:55:21,790
two more. And they said, no. Were we thinking of one a

886
00:55:21,790 --> 00:55:25,510
year for the next 10 years? And I said, no, absolutely not. But they then

887
00:55:25,510 --> 00:55:28,610
went away and read the whole Melbourne books and they came back very excited. They

888
00:55:28,610 --> 00:55:32,410
said, how about doing that for us in America? We

889
00:55:32,410 --> 00:55:36,170
want it present day. We. You can choose where you set it. You

890
00:55:36,170 --> 00:55:39,490
can set it anywhere you like in America, but we'd like your English

891
00:55:39,490 --> 00:55:43,250
barrister to be a bit of a fish out of water. So I thought.

892
00:55:44,050 --> 00:55:47,570
Well, I thought. I thought about New York, but there's

893
00:55:47,570 --> 00:55:51,250
plenty of lawyers in New York who. And they're writing this sort of

894
00:55:51,250 --> 00:55:54,770
thing. I thought about Alabama and the southern parts of the states. That's Grisham

895
00:55:54,770 --> 00:55:58,380
territory. I thought about la. That's Michael

896
00:55:58,380 --> 00:56:01,740
Connolly territory. But there was no one doing it about

897
00:56:02,060 --> 00:56:05,660
Massachusetts and Cape Cod. And I love the

898
00:56:05,740 --> 00:56:09,180
fact that they come in Cape Cod. There are people with

899
00:56:10,060 --> 00:56:13,820
phenomenal wealth. Yes. Martha's Vineyard

900
00:56:13,900 --> 00:56:17,660
and Nantucket island, you know, they've got the Kennedy

901
00:56:17,660 --> 00:56:21,140
enclosures and they've got, you know, a lot of big stars live there, but at

902
00:56:21,140 --> 00:56:24,430
the same time, in the winter it's dead. And it's just

903
00:56:24,830 --> 00:56:28,590
a poor fishing community with some artists and so on. I

904
00:56:28,590 --> 00:56:32,270
really love that conflict. So I decided

905
00:56:32,270 --> 00:56:35,910
to set it in Cape Cod and they seem very

906
00:56:35,910 --> 00:56:39,390
pleased with that. And I have made up my own cast of characters.

907
00:56:39,790 --> 00:56:43,630
The only thing I've stuck to, because they particularly wanted it, was that he will

908
00:56:43,790 --> 00:56:47,550
be in court in the same way as Holborn is in London.

909
00:56:48,760 --> 00:56:52,440
So you obviously are going to have to do a huge

910
00:56:52,440 --> 00:56:56,280
amount of learning and watching because, you

911
00:56:56,280 --> 00:56:59,760
know, as you said yourself, the whole

912
00:56:59,760 --> 00:57:03,400
procedure, even the laws are. But certainly the way in which

913
00:57:03,400 --> 00:57:06,920
you advocate, et cetera, totally different in the us. No.

914
00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:10,720
Yep. No, absolutely. I've spent a month over there so far and I've managed to

915
00:57:10,720 --> 00:57:14,320
learn enough, just about. We'll see how

916
00:57:14,320 --> 00:57:17,960
badly I've written it, but just about enough to write the first book.

917
00:57:19,000 --> 00:57:22,520
I've actually thought of myself that the quick way of

918
00:57:22,520 --> 00:57:26,200
learning this might be to study for the bar

919
00:57:26,280 --> 00:57:30,080
in Massachusetts. Now, I have no idea how

920
00:57:30,080 --> 00:57:33,079
long that would take. I don't know if it can even be done remotely from

921
00:57:33,079 --> 00:57:36,680
the uk, but I think the only way I'm ever going to

922
00:57:36,680 --> 00:57:39,880
learn exactly how it all operates is to do it.

923
00:57:40,440 --> 00:57:44,120
What about finding maybe such an animal doesn't exist?

924
00:57:44,640 --> 00:57:48,400
An English barrister who went over There at

925
00:57:48,400 --> 00:57:51,840
some stage. I know one in Miami, but he's gone into civil law.

926
00:57:52,080 --> 00:57:55,880
An English barrister who has done exactly what your

927
00:57:55,880 --> 00:57:59,000
book is being written about. I guess they're one in a million. Right. Well, I

928
00:57:59,000 --> 00:58:02,480
did find a young woman who had gone over there,

929
00:58:02,480 --> 00:58:06,160
but. And I met her while I was there and she was wonderfully helpful

930
00:58:06,560 --> 00:58:10,360
but she's gone into international law and it's really not

931
00:58:10,360 --> 00:58:14,060
the same at all. No, not at all. I'm also. I haven't yet

932
00:58:14,060 --> 00:58:17,580
run this by the publishers, but it seems to me that if

933
00:58:17,660 --> 00:58:20,380
he becomes too familiar with

934
00:58:21,740 --> 00:58:24,980
the legal procedure and so on there, he will lose his

935
00:58:24,980 --> 00:58:28,220
usp. He'll just become an American

936
00:58:28,380 --> 00:58:32,060
lawyer with a British accent. And they don't want that. They

937
00:58:32,060 --> 00:58:35,820
want him to make mistakes and be a fish out of water. And I

938
00:58:35,820 --> 00:58:39,430
think I'm. You like that. Yeah. So we'll see.

939
00:58:41,110 --> 00:58:44,870
I've almost finished the first book in the series. Probably another

940
00:58:44,870 --> 00:58:48,270
week or so to get the first draft finished and I'll send it off to

941
00:58:48,270 --> 00:58:51,990
them and then I'll tackle what's going to happen in subsequent books with

942
00:58:51,990 --> 00:58:55,430
that. Excellent. And what about film rights? Do you

943
00:58:55,430 --> 00:58:58,830
retain those or how does it work in a deal like this? I've still got

944
00:58:58,830 --> 00:59:02,390
the film rights to the Holborn books and they are under

945
00:59:02,390 --> 00:59:06,130
option. Hopefully something's going to come of

946
00:59:06,130 --> 00:59:09,850
that. There's a. There's interest from some British producers who

947
00:59:09,850 --> 00:59:12,810
are very keen to. To produce a TV series.

948
00:59:13,930 --> 00:59:17,250
So far as the Americans are concerned, they kept the rights and they are busy

949
00:59:17,250 --> 00:59:21,090
touting them about at the moment. I heard yesterday who, who, who have you

950
00:59:21,090 --> 00:59:24,930
got in mind before? As one of our last questions, if

951
00:59:24,930 --> 00:59:28,730
this becomes, which I hope it does, a TV series in the

952
00:59:28,730 --> 00:59:32,570
uk, who is the man or the woman that is, I

953
00:59:32,570 --> 00:59:36,210
guess it's got to be Charles. It's because of everything and the structure. Who is

954
00:59:36,210 --> 00:59:39,930
Charles? Which actor? Now that's a very good question. It's a game that

955
00:59:39,930 --> 00:59:43,650
I play often with my mates. I mean, if it was

956
00:59:43,650 --> 00:59:46,850
20 years ago, Ray Winstone would be the obvious

957
00:59:47,409 --> 00:59:51,010
chap because he's an East End boy who can probably

958
00:59:51,970 --> 00:59:55,810
mock up a pretty good accent and he's tough. And Charles

959
00:59:55,810 --> 00:59:59,490
is a heavyweight boxer, so that would be perfect. He's a bit

960
00:59:59,490 --> 01:00:02,950
too old for it. There's a guy called Jonathan. I think his name is

961
01:00:02,950 --> 01:00:06,590
Jonathan Daniel. He was in Bridgerton.

962
01:00:06,750 --> 01:00:10,590
He was in Bridgerton. I don't know if he bought it. He's very good

963
01:00:10,590 --> 01:00:13,990
looking, so he's much better looking than I imagine Charles would be, but

964
01:00:13,990 --> 01:00:17,790
nonetheless, I think he could probably do it. What about.

965
01:00:18,110 --> 01:00:21,870
He might be too old. Stephen Graham. I mean, he's probably too

966
01:00:21,870 --> 01:00:25,350
big as well, but he's too old. Yeah. Two

967
01:00:25,350 --> 01:00:29,030
Liverpudlian, and

968
01:00:29,030 --> 01:00:32,790
he's not big enough. Charles is. Oh, you need someone that's

969
01:00:32,790 --> 01:00:35,830
6 foot 1, 6 foot 2, don't you? Yeah, he's got to be. Well, he's

970
01:00:35,830 --> 01:00:39,590
actually, Charles is 5 foot 11, so he's not enormously tall, but he is

971
01:00:39,590 --> 01:00:43,070
built like a brick shithouse. He's huge. Yes. You know, he's a

972
01:00:43,070 --> 01:00:46,110
heavyweight boxer, so you'd need someone like that.

973
01:00:46,510 --> 01:00:50,350
Okay. Tom Hardy. Tom Hardy. Great.

974
01:00:51,630 --> 01:00:55,270
And he's got. Exactly. I can see it now. That's it. I will sign the

975
01:00:55,270 --> 01:00:59,060
petition for Tom. Okay. Okay. Listen, Simon, the time

976
01:00:59,060 --> 01:01:02,780
has gone just so much faster than I could ever believe

977
01:01:02,780 --> 01:01:06,580
it, and I've got so many more questions in my sheets

978
01:01:06,900 --> 01:01:10,100
here, so if I may just put a

979
01:01:10,100 --> 01:01:13,379
pause in the process of

980
01:01:13,620 --> 01:01:16,740
podcasting with you and maybe grab you on another

981
01:01:17,460 --> 01:01:20,660
day when you feel that you feel like talking about

982
01:01:21,140 --> 01:01:24,880
your books in more depth, I will give you a tinkle. And we will.

983
01:01:25,120 --> 01:01:28,720
We will reappear, probably on Zoom, if Riverside is still

984
01:01:28,720 --> 01:01:32,440
playing games with us. But it's been such a joy talking

985
01:01:32,440 --> 01:01:36,040
to you, and I can't wait to meet you in real life one day when

986
01:01:36,040 --> 01:01:39,280
you come down to London so that we can break some bread together.

987
01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:43,600
Lovely. Thank you very much indeed. It's been lots of fun. It has been fun.

988
01:01:43,600 --> 01:01:47,120
I love it. Thank you for listening and if you enjoyed this

989
01:01:47,120 --> 01:01:50,430
podcast, please click and subscribe. The Intelligence

990
01:01:50,430 --> 01:01:53,550
Advantage podcast on Spotify and other

991
01:01:53,550 --> 01:01:54,310
platforms.