WIG BETRAYED
CHARLES COURTLEY
Copyright © 2014 Charles Courtley
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study,
or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents
Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in
any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with
the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries
concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
All characters and events in this publication are entirely fictitious.
The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the
author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.
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This book is for my wife, Jane, and dedicated to the memory of my ancestor, Thomas Court Seymour, 1832-1900
Contents
Cover
Author’s Note
Foreword
Prologue
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Author’s Note
Wig Betrayed is the sequel to the previous novel Wig Begone. Both novels, written in the first person, recount the legal career (as a barrister and later a judge) of the fictional narrator, Charles Courtley.
Charles Courtley is a pen-name. Although some of the background in both books (but particularly the second) refers to real places and institutions, all the characters and incidents portrayed are wholly imaginary and not intended, in anyway, to represent the true nature of those institutions.
The author retains the highest respect and esteem for both the Office of the Judge Advocate General and the Armed Forces with whom he worked closely for many years.
ROBERT SEYMOUR
Foreword
I’m delighted and honoured to have been asked to write the foreword to this wonderful novel which follows on from the excellent Wig Begone. The author follows in a rich tradition of fiction-writing from barristers and former barristers, including the great John Mortimer’s creation Rumpole of the Bailey and my own personal favourite Henry Cecil’s Brothers in Law.
In this volume we meet an older and more experienced Charles Courtley whose life seems to be in many ways out of his own control. But as he also starts to lose direction as to what is important to him and his world falls apart around him a tiny light begins to flicker to life offering up the hope of redemption.
I know from my own experience that writing a second novel can be more of a challenge than the first and in doing so the author has produced not only a cracking yarn but also one with real pathos where the strains and responsibilities of legal life can sometimes really take their toll. Added to this is the fact that whilst the story itself is fiction, the details are authentic and open a window for the reader onto the little known world of military justice. All in all a great page-turner of a book that I would heartily recommend.
Tim Kevan.
Author of the BabyBarista novels ‘Law and Disorder’ and ‘Law and Peace’.
Braunton, North Devon.
30 January 2014.
Prologue
“Chas, you were a judge once, right?” asked Cranley.
“How on earth do you know that?”
“Found it on the Internet when I looked you up.”
Nobody in the class had asked me about that before, although it wasn’t as if I had changed my name. But somehow, Chas Courtley, lecturer in O-level Law at the special skills college in Hastings who taught deaf youngsters, was a world away from Judge Advocate Courtley, a former military judge.
Cranley, my best pupil at the college, looked concerned. Expression revealed so much more about him than it would have done if he possessed the power of speech. He must have noticed the pain that crossed my face.
“So sorry,” he signed. “Shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s a long story,” I signed back.
It was at this point that I decided it was time to write this tale and make it available to everybody. After all, I didn’t think any judge in history had been through what had happened to me. Andrea would help too by contributing to those areas where she had played a significant part.
I patted Cranley on the shoulder. I liked him enormously and admired his courage in pursuing the course. He was highly intelligent and determined one day to be a lawyer, even though his speech amounted to little more than grunts. To help him, and indeed all my pupils, was so rewarding. Perhaps it was no longer being on an isolated pedestal that accounted for that. Learning sign language and going into teaching had changed my life forever.
It was time to confront my past. Why had it happened? After all, I had been so proud to be appointed a judge advocate when I left the Bar. I cast my mind back to doing that first case, when I faced loneliness for the first time which later spiralled into depression and ultimately led to my destruction.
* * *
That first case that I ever did had been conducted at a barracks deep in the Scottish Highlands, and when the trial commenced I began to enjoy myself. Presiding benignly over the proceedings seemed pleasant enough, but I hadn’t reckoned on how I would feel when the court rose for the day. No sigh of relief at the finish with a joke or two at the expense of the judge in the barristers’ robing room. And no trip to the nearest watering hole for a convivial drink, as things would have been had I still been in practice. No gossip either about colleagues or mocking references to lying clients and devious police officers…
Instead, a stately trip back to my country hotel, in splendid isolation, conveyed in a staff car, and then a lonely drink at the bar followed by an even more solitary dinner and a bottle of wine. My former routine began to haunt me with a vengeance.
Staring blankly out of my bedroom window, I realized just how valuable it had been as a safety valve and how much I was going to miss it on the bench.
And the sense of isolation was to increase markedly after I was posted to Germany…
One
“Good morning. Could I speak to one of the JAG chappies?”
“Who’s calling, please?”
“This is Colonel Kayward, Chief of Staff to the General Officer Commanding. And you are..?”
“A judge advocate, actually
. How can I help?”
“The General is fuming. He wants to know why he can’t have his blasted golf club back!”
I was sitting in my room at Headquarters, British Army of the Rhine situated at Brockendorf Garrison, watching the rain patter incessantly against the window of my office (a prefabricated building erected just after the Second World War) which I shared nominally with a colleague.
Six weeks had passed since coming to Germany and my mood was gloomy. The view from the window didn’t help either, looking as it did over a succession of similar crumbling edifices which flanked the main road of the camp. Lying across that road was the officers’ mess where I had been required to live (on my own) for the time being. Andrea couldn’t join me until the authorities assigned us married quarters.
If that wasn’t bad enough, I had to put up with the company of Major Vernon Strawbridge every day. And most evenings, too! Strawbridge was the PPCM with whom I was required to sit with in court on a daily basis. Every court martial, whether district or general, had a president who was nominally in charge of proceedings. In practice the judge advocate (me) really ran the show, directing the board about the law before they deliberated on the facts and guiding them on the appropriate sentence after a conviction or a guilty plea. However, the army, in their wisdom, chose to appoint passed-over majors to act as presidents on a permanent basis, hence the term PPCM: Permanent President of Courts Martial.
Not only did Strawbridge hold this position, but he lived in the officers’ mess as well. He drank prodigiously and tended to yarn about the years he had spent in the pre-independence Rhodesian Army – to the stupefaction of the other residents of the mess, of which I was one.
What was more, every working day was a misery too as I had been sitting with Strawbridge conducting absence without leave cases consistently at the Brockendorf Court Martial Centre. This court was housed in yet another prefabricated building which had, at one time, been an infants’ school on camp for the offspring of the soldiers. Condemned because of substantial damp, the building had been abandoned by the teachers but was still regarded by the authorities as being perfectly adequate to deal with courts martial, at least of that type.
The board of officers and I were squashed up on a small, enclosed bench which overlooked the dank room. Despite much effort having been made to scrub out the murals of Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse on the wall to our rear, the pictures were still clearly visible; hardly enhancing an atmosphere of formality.
When I wasn’t doing the cases, I sat in our office reading back copies of law reports and the countless, tedious rules which regulated every aspect of life in a peacetime army establishment. I never saw the other judge advocate assigned to Germany as he didn’t even live there but just came across to try the more serious cases (those actually involving allegations of criminality) as I was deemed too junior to be able to deal with these. However, I had heard about the general’s golf club: it was the talk of the mess.
General Hudibrass, the General Officer Commanding the British Army of the Rhine, was a keen golfer and played all around Germany in various tournaments. Being a man of great importance in the military community (and in many ways treated like a god), he always expected a soldier to accompany him to look after his golfing equipment and act as a caddy as well. The soldiers were drawn by rote from a Royal Corps of Transport platoon back at headquarters, and they were also responsible for the running of the general’s staff cars.
Some months before, the General had played at the Gut Larchenhof Golf Club near Frankfurt. Afterwards his driver had taken him back to Brockendorf in the official Rover, leaving his caddy to take the train. The caddy returned to camp, disposed of the golf club bag in the guardroom and promptly went absent without leave. Only on the next occasion when the general played golf did he realize that his favourite club was missing: a handcrafted, silver alloyed 2-iron.
Not long after, back in the UK, Private Merse, the absent ex-caddy, was arrested by the civilian police after being stopped for a road traffic offence. The police discovered that he was not only AWOL but also wanted for stealing the golf club. A search of his home address took place and the golf club was found stowed away in a cupboard. Later, after being brought back to Germany, Merse was interviewed by the Royal Military Police. He made a simple statement under caution on the advice of his legal representative, a squadron leader from the Royal Air Force’s legal department. These lawyers were often instructed to defend soldiers in Germany and their services came without charge.
The statement was short and to the point: ‘I had good reason to take the golf club. I deny dishonesty completely.’
Thus the golf club became an exhibit in the case and was duly handed over to the Army Prosecuting Authority responsible for prosecuting the case. However, when General Hudibrass discovered that they retained the club, he peremptorily demanded it back through his Chief of Staff!
A memo was immediately delivered by hand to Major Rashleigh, the prosecuting officer from the APA, who happened to occupy the same set of premises as the general and his minions. These were the actual headquarters of BAOR itself and were known unaffectionately as ‘the Fortress’ due to a close resemblance to an Eastern European police station of the communist era.
Indeed, only that morning I had received a memo from Major Rashleigh about the club indicating that he was minded to return it, provided he had judicial authority to do this. My instant reaction was an emphatic no. It was a court exhibit and should not be released until the imminent criminal proceedings had been concluded. I was about to tell Rashleigh of my decision but Kayward had jumped the gun.
“Well, he can’t have it back,” I now answered firmly. “It’s a court exhibit and even the ownership of it may be an issue. Only the trial can resolve that.”
“The General will think you’re talking a lot of legal mumbo jumbo. It’s his golf club, after all! He happens to be playing a vital match in Hanover next week and he wants his lucky club back!”
“Lucky club?”
“Lady Hudibrass gave it to him as a wedding anniversary present two years ago. Indeed, his game has improved so much recently that his handicap’s down to three...”
“I’m sorry, Colonel, the club can’t be released until after the trial. That’s the law.”
“But this is the General we’re talking about. As the commander of chief of BAOR, he is the law!”
I winced at this, yet what he said contained a morsel of truth. Military law prevailed in Germany and that meant the general, theoretically at least, was the fount of justice. He had the power actually to quash a conviction by court martial and reduce any sentence as the ultimate appellate authority. But what he could not do was to interfere with the running of a court: that was the judge advocate’s responsibility.
“Not in this instance, he isn’t. I’m sorry, Colonel.”
“Then I shall go to a higher authority. There must be someone above you in the chain of command.”
“I don’t have a chain of command. I am an independent member of the judiciary, appointed by the Lord Chancellor,” I retorted pompously.
“Aren’t you like vicars? The Vicar General is in charge of them, so the Judge Advocate General must be in charge of you!”
“Well, he’s not and my decision is final!”
I slammed down the phone and almost immediately dispatched a written memo to Major Rashleigh to the same effect. I was sure I was right, but as I was seeing Sir Binden Peascod in three days’ time (on a routine visit back to London) I decided, to be on the safe side, to canvass the matter with him.
Two
Having been appointed a judge advocate by the Lord Chancellor some months before, I had been attached to the Office of the Judge Advocate General of the Forces located in the Admiralty Arch building in London. The front of the premises looked up the Mall with a splendid view of Buckingham Palace at the top. There were only four of us on the permanent staff: The Judge Advocate General himself, the Vice Judge Advocate Gener
al, me, and one other person.
I had envisaged Sir Binden Peascod to be an imposing figure: a legal and military notable with the physique of a general and the face of a wise, old judge. After all, at one time the Judge Advocate General had been a member of the cabinet who was responsible for justice in the armed forces throughout the British Empire. Disappointingly, however, according to Who’s Who, Sir Binden had practised at the Bar for precisely one year and had only been a major in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps which did not sound very learned or dashing. Nor did he, in the flesh, dispel that impression. He was an undistinguished-looking man dressed in the ubiquitous, lawyer’s dress of the day: black jacket and pinstriped trousers. He had a pasty face and jowls that wobbled disconcertedly every time he spoke. Large melancholy eyes looked out dolorously from under a balding pate. He reminded me of a bloodhound.
By contrast, the Vice Judge Advocate General did look military in the sense that (despite being short) he strutted about barking orders at every opportunity. In fact, it was this individual, Harold Plunt, who had welcomed me to the office originally and introduced me to the rest of the staff.
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