While the decision to jail Trenton Oldfield has been greeted with shock – the New Statesman went as far as to describe the case as “our Pussy Riot” – there has also been amusement at the anti-elitism protester’s rather elite background.
Oldfield attended one of Australia’s most highly-regarded fee-paying schools, before obtaining a masters degree at the London School of Economics and becoming a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
It seems that this taste for establishment excellence may have influenced Oldfield’s choice of lawyers…
Rather than enlist the services of a hot shot legal executive, who’d soared to the top despite never going to university, or hire a plucky lawyer who’d made it into the profession via an ex-poly, Oldfield went the traditional route and instructed two Oxford men.
His solicitor was Oxford University-educated Mike Schwarz, of top civil liberties firm Bindmans, while his barrister was Doughty Street’s Benjamin Newton, also an Oxford graduate.