Rumpole Misbehaves Read Free

it?’
    â€˜If I accepted your hospitality…’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Then I’d be as anti-social as you are.’
    At this our Director of Marketing left me feeling profoundly anti-social so far as Ballard and his devious sidekick, Claude Erskine-Brown, were concerned.
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    There is a certain area of London, not far from Clapham Common, where the streets of the wealthier middle classes, such as Beechwood Grove, are perilously close to less respectable areas, such as Rampton Road, which have become inhabited by members of the ever-spreading Timson clan, among them Bertie Timson, his wife, Leonie, and their single child, the twelve-year-old Peter. Bertie Timson’s alleged trade as an ‘Electrical Consultant’ was in fact a cover story for more felonious transactions, but he was a polite enough client, and I remember him thanking me warmly after a successful defence on a charge of carrying house-breaking implements. He had done his time during Peter’s extreme youth and now, when his son got into trouble, he had remembered Rumpole.
    Peter and his friends frequently engaged in football games in Rampton Road which the neighbours apparently suffered without protest. However, on too many occasions the ball found its way into the quiet and respectable precincts of Beechwood Grove. After a number of complaints, the police were called. When Peter Timson pursued a flying ball into Beechwood Grove, he alone was apprehended, as the rest of the team scarpered. Apparently Peter was considered to be the ringleader and source of all the trouble.
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    So I walked one Monday morning, with rain dribbling down from a grey sky, into the South London Magistrates’ Court to defend a serious case of wrongfully kicked football. Madam Chair, hawk-nosed and sharp-eyed, with a hair-do which looked as though it had been carved out of yellow soap, sat between two unremarkable bookends, a stout and pink-faced man with a Trade Union badge in his lapel and a lean and hungry-looking fellow who might have been a schoolmaster.
    â€˜It’s unusual for the defendant to be represented at this stage of the ASBO proceedings, Mr Rumpole. We wonder that you can spare the time from your busy practice.’ Madam Chair sounded coldly amused.
    â€˜Then wonder on,’ I told her, ‘till truth make all things plain. Busy as I am, and I am of course extremely busy, I can always spare time for a case in which the liberty of the subject is an issue.’
    â€˜Your young client’s liberty won’t become an issue unless he breaks an anti-social behaviour order. We are all concerned with the liberty of the subject to enjoy peace from noisy footballers. Mr Parkes, I’m sure that you have a statement.’
    The person addressed as Parkes appeared to be some eager young dogsbody from the local council. He handed a document up to the bench and began to read the statement of a Mrs Harriet Englefield of 15 Beechwood Grove. She said she was a ‘healer’ by profession and had many clients whom she was able to treat for physical and nervous disorders in a peaceful and homely atmosphere. She also had an aged mother who had been ordered long periods of rest and tranquillity, which had become impossible owing to the noisy games of football played by ‘rough children who come pouring in from Rampton Road’.
    It was at this point that I rose to object. ‘No doubt this Mrs Harriet Englefield will be giving evidence on oath?’
    â€˜The law has advanced a little since your call to the Bar, Mr Rumpole. We don’t need to trouble such witnesses as Mrs Englefield. We are entitled to proceed on her written statement,’ Madam Chair told me.
    â€˜So you are prepared to decide a criminal matter on hearsay evidence?’
    â€˜It’s not a criminal matter yet, Mr Rumpole. And it won’t be unless your client breaks the order we’ve been asked to make.’
    â€˜And plays football