Her defeat in 1992 left her with legal costs of £300,000, a point not lost on Mr Carter-Ruck.”The only certainty in litigation is the expense,” he says. “There is always a risk in going to court and you have to have very good judgement. I settle on more than 90 per cent of the cases I am asked to advise on.”He founded Peter Carter-Ruck and Partners in 1982 but the final years there were marred by a bitter and well-publicised dispute with his fellow partners over the future of the firm.So bad did the situation get that on his retirement as senior partner in 1998, he even consulted an outside law firm (the legal fees are thought to have come to £45,000), before following his own advice and settling the dispute before it reached court.His younger partners, it seems, wanted the firm to become a niche libel practice while Mr Carter-Ruck, who remained senior consultant there until June this year, wanted them to offer clients a more rounded service.He is now getting that wish to broaden his practice. Roland Pelly, senior partner at Pellys, is delighted with his coup. “Peter has got so much energy he is like a chap half his age,” he says. “He lives just outside Bishop’s Stortford and we met and got on so well we came to this arrangement.

I look on him as a father figure.”Mr Carter-Ruck certainly is sprightly. Besides lunching regularly at the Garrick club, he is a keen sailor – with a succession of yachts called Fair Judgment. Down at The Herts and Essex Observer, Bishop’s Stortford’s newspaper, journalists were putting a brave face on the arrival of Britain’s most formidable libel lawyer in their patch.”We pride ourselves on our accuracy,” said news editor Sandra Perry.”And, anyway, he likes us – thank goodness.”. The Crown Prosecution Service is to lodge an appeal against a court ruling which has thrown into doubt the legality of police action against motorists who have been caught breaking the law on camera.

The Crown Prosecution Service is to lodge an appeal against a court ruling which has thrown into doubt the legality of police action against motorists who have been caught breaking the law on camera.
Motoring organisations warned it would lead to a “nightmare” of confusion for motorists. Opposition leaders called for urgent government action to clarify the law after the case against two motorists accused of driving offences collapsed when they claimed their human rights had been infringed.Birmingham residents Amesh Chauhan, 22, of Moseley, and Dean Hollingsworth, 23, of Hall Green, had been charged with dangerous driving after West Midlands Police allegedly filmed them racing their cars through Birmingham city centre.They were sent routine letters by the police – with a warning of possible prosecution – asking them to confirm that they were the drivers of the cars when the alleged offences were committed.But Judge Peter Crawford, the Recorder of Birmingham, said the police letters were in breach of article six of the European Convention on Human Rights which safeguards the right of anybody suspected of a crime not to incriminate himself.”This is a prosecutor’s nightmare,” said Kevin Delaney, a spokesman for the RAC Foundation. “The Home Office is going to have to sit down and draw up guidelines.”I hope they are doing it this morning for the police because, as of Monday, people are going to be receiving these notices and are going to be believing, rightly or wrongly, that they are under no legal obligation to do anything with them.”And the shadow Home Secretary Ann Widdecombe said the case was just the first of many “chaotic” situations as a result of European human rights legislation and “clever lawyers” who could show there have been breaches.”I think lawyers will be poring through our procedures now to see if they are strictly compatible and I think we will have several of these situations,” she said on BBC Radio yesterday.”You can have a law recognising human rights – and we always have in this country… But when you try to enshrine it in very technical things like this, you end up with a problem.”The CPS said that it was seeking prosecution counsel advice, but Whitehall sources said the appeal would go ahead The Home Office has expressed concern at the ruling. “We are aware of other European countries who also require similar information from motorists but no breach of the Article on Human Rights has been found,” said a spokesman.Meanwhile, the Home Office is telling the police to carry on with their present procedures for checking on the identity of motorists prior to possible prosecutions.The Scottish Court of Appeal ruled in February that the requirement to name the driver in such circumstances did contravene article six. That case has been referred to the Privy Council in London, which is the final appeal court for Scotland Both appeals could be heard at the same time..

Preventing a close shave from become a narrow escape has been every man’s dream since the first homo sapiens studied his face in a rock pool and began to strop a flint blade against a piece of oily granite. Preventing a close shave from become a narrow escape has been every man’s dream since the first homo sapiens studied his face in a rock pool and began to strop a flint blade against a piece of oily granite.
Shaving is a daily ritual indulged in without enthusiasm by most men. That is why weekend stubble is so popular and Bob Geldof doesn’t like Mondays. We know we have to do it – though not why – but wish we could find a better way.Now, a pair of British designers – Dick Powell and Richard Seymour – claim to have come up with the solution. Their ultra-sonic shaving system provides, they say, a closer, more comfortable cut than wet shaving, while being more convenient than an electric razor.A demonstration of its effectiveness can be viewed on Channel 4 on Tuesday night, with the return to our screens of Better By Design.During the six-part series, produced in association with the Design Council, Powell and Seymour will also highlight their all-new economy airline seat, a replacement shopping trolley (oh yes!), an odourless kitchen bin, an easy-to-wear life jacket and a dependable burglar alarm. Last season, they sorted out the women with their machine-washable “bioform” bra, to be launched this October by Charnos. This time, with their wet ‘n’ dry shaver, it’s the men’s turn.According to Powell, who, unlike Seymour, does not have a beard, the choice for men up until now has been a wet shave – which means being tied to the sink each morning – or electric, which is less effective and leaves the skin stinging.Gillette and Wilkinson, on the wet-shave side, have tackled the problem by introducing multiple blades.