A light hearted post for a change.

John Terry is all over Twitter again tonight; this time not connected to a team mate’s wife or for using foul language. In fact very much the opposite; he is ridiculed for being too polite.

He was asked to confirm how many times he has been sent off. His reply of four was too softly spoken for the court to hear so his barrister asked him to “say please, four times”.

“Please, please, please, please” was his response!

You couldn’t make it up! One wonders why he thought he was being asked to do this and what else his barrister could have made him say?

In fairness, the courtroom can be a very intimidating place if you aren’t used to it and it’s easy to slip up.

In my time I have come across some funny gaffs…

Like when I asked my client why he agreed with everything the prosecutor asked him in cross examination. “I thought he was on our side because you called him ‘my friend’.”

Or the time that a witness was recounting a nasty verbal abuse against him. He told the court that the defendant called him a ‘specky, four eyed, Irish, Catholic, c**t’.  The chairman of the bench looked up at him and said, “were you wearing you glasses at the time?”

A colleague representing two clients was asked to explain why one of them hadn’t turned up. He turned to ask the defendant who had turned up why his friend hadn’t. Upon hearing the muttered answer he told the magistrates that his client had nits. ‘Nits?’ asked the magistrates. Feeling a tug on his jacket he turned back to the helpful friend who repeated the answer. “Ahh, he ummm, has, erm, gastric problems!”

Tags: legal anecdotes