Harry Ognall - A Life of Crime - The Memoirs of a High Court Judge

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017

Copyright © 2017 Harry Ognall

Cover photograph © Annings Digital Photography, Ilkley

Harry Ognall asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins

Source ISBN: 9780008267469

Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008267476

Version: 2018-11-06

To Sally, for so many reasons.

‘That’s it, then’

‘There are worse prisons than words’

Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

Contents

Cover

Title Page A LIFE OF CRIME The Memoirs of a High Court Judge Harry Ognall

Copyright Copyright Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Prologue Chapter 1: Beginnings Chapter 2: An Opening Door Chapter 3: The Silk Road Chapter 4: Advice to the Young Advocate Chapter 5: A Tribute and a Testament Chapter 6: Scarlet and Ermine Chapter 7: At the End of the Day … Epilogue Acknowledgements About the Author About the Publisher William Collins An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017 Copyright © 2017 Harry Ognall Cover photograph © Annings Digital Photography, Ilkley Harry Ognall asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Source ISBN: 9780008267469 Ebook Edition © November 2017 ISBN: 9780008267476 Version: 2018-11-06

Dedication Dedication Contents Cover Title Page Copyright Dedication Epigraph Prologue Chapter 1: Beginnings Chapter 2: An Opening Door Chapter 3: The Silk Road Chapter 4: Advice to the Young Advocate Chapter 5: A Tribute and a Testament Chapter 6: Scarlet and Ermine Chapter 7: At the End of the Day … Epilogue Acknowledgements About the Author About the Publisher To Sally, for so many reasons. ‘That’s it, then’

Epigraph ‘There are worse prisons than words’ Carlos Ruiz Zafón, The Shadow of the Wind

Prologue PROLOGUE Chinese wisdom encourages us to take comfort that ‘even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’. But what if the journey is not one that lies ahead, but one of retrospect? Does that need less resolve – or more? My life in the law was filled with so much that enjoyed a high profile at the time, and which has left a legacy of continuing interest, and sometimes fascination. That said, there is an obvious danger that, as a central actor in those dramas, my recall may now be corrupted by the erosion of the passing years. Or my account may be tainted by the temptations of egotism, or the lure of the apocryphal. And so I have put off this moment for a very long time, until it has become very clear that I should either embark now, or never. I must do my best to tell it as it really was.

Chapter 1: Beginnings

Chapter 2: An Opening Door

Chapter 3: The Silk Road

Chapter 4: Advice to the Young Advocate

Chapter 5: A Tribute and a Testament

Chapter 6: Scarlet and Ermine

Chapter 7: At the End of the Day …

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

About the Author

About the Publisher

Chinese wisdom encourages us to take comfort that ‘even a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step’. But what if the journey is not one that lies ahead, but one of retrospect? Does that need less resolve – or more?

My life in the law was filled with so much that enjoyed a high profile at the time, and which has left a legacy of continuing interest, and sometimes fascination. That said, there is an obvious danger that, as a central actor in those dramas, my recall may now be corrupted by the erosion of the passing years. Or my account may be tainted by the temptations of egotism, or the lure of the apocryphal.

And so I have put off this moment for a very long time, until it has become very clear that I should either embark now, or never. I must do my best to tell it as it really was.

What follows will be the odyssey of my life at the English criminal Bar and as a Queen’s Bench judge, recounted through the prism of some of the more memorable trials in which I was involved. But every narrative must have a beginning, and my early years seem to me to be as logical a starting place as any. Wholly to ignore the first twenty-five years of my life seems to me, anyway, to leave a void. However accidental my ultimate choice of career may seem to have been, perhaps within my early years is to be found the seed bed out of which my future grew.

I was born in 1934 in Salford, Lancashire, of middle-class Jewish parents. They were never more than easy-going in their orthodoxy, and (save in my early days at school during the war) my religion never featured as a significant or oppressive aspect of my life. I was named (curiously) Harry Henry, after my paternal grandfather, who had died one month earlier. I know very little about him. He was by all accounts a kind, modest and hard-working man. He lived with his wife, Bessie, in Rutherglen, Glasgow, and was a councillor for the Gallowflat Ward in what was then the separate town of Rutherglen, serving for one year as its provost, or mayor. He made the improvement of educational facilities and standards his special interest. He ran a small business, selling smoking pipes and tobacco.