Somehow West London Magistrates’ Court in Southcombe Street near Barons Court tube station seemed more informal than Bow Street and Marlborough Street, certainly so far as dress code was concerned. I remember at Marlborough Street seeing my friend, the giant Irishman David Sarch, appearing one morning in a Prince of Wales check suit minus waistcoat and the magistrate refusing to hear him, going through the old routine – ‘It’s no use speaking louder, Mr Sarch, I still won’t be able to hear you’ – until someone whispered to him that he was considered to be improperly dressed.

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Obiter | Law Gazette