Social media is watching
In days gone by a barrister could walk into a lamppost on his way to court and expect his misfortune to remain relatively private.
Not anymore, of course.
Trial in Croydon delayed briefly after barrister arrives late because he walked into a lamppost waving to a neighbour while on way to court
— Gareth Davies (@Gareth_Davies09) November 28, 2014
71 retweets and a follow-up local newspaper article later, and Garden Court’s Giles Newell will forever be remembered as the lamppost barrister.
Fortunately — judging by the absence of photos of the incident on Twitter — it seems that Newell’s neighbour showed remarkable restraint and refrained from pulling out a smartphone and plastering photos of the crocked barrister all over the internet.
As the Croydon Advertiser reports, Newell’s accident meant that he arrived late for the Crown Court trial in which he was appearing because he had to sit down for 30 minutes to recover after his collision.
Back in pre-social media days, barristers needed to cause much more major delays than that to generate headlines.
In the fall-out from the news about Newell and the lamppost over the weekend, legal academic Gary Slapper dredged up an article from 1997 about the whole east coast rail network being halted after a barrister’s important papers blew onto the tracks at York station
.@ChrisMurphy201 I liked 'case delayed cos of lamppost'
cf. York station shut after barrister's papers blown on track http://t.co/KGuttrGc
— Gary Slapper (@garyslapper) November 30, 2014