Harry Read online

  ‘Answer the question, please,’ the Judge, who was plainly on to the point, replied.

  ‘Well, I charged £2,400 plus VAT for my first report.’

  ‘Right, so that’s about £3,000, including the VAT.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And your second report?’

  ‘£800, plus VAT.’

  ‘So that’s about £1,000, including the VAT.’

  ‘And giving evidence today, how much for that?’

  ‘£1,000, plus VAT and expenses.’

  ‘So, the cost of your evidence could have provided an awful lot of therapy, couldn’t it? Isn’t that right?’

  ‘I suppose what you are saying is correct on the mathematics.’

  ‘What therapy have you identified as being available to this mother?’

  ‘Well, I haven’t.’

  ‘Why not? You recommend it.’

  ‘I can’t answer that.’

  ‘Would you agree with me that it was obvious from the start that this mother needed therapy – obvious from well before the time of this little boy’s birth?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘This mother’s own upbringing was so abusive that it was inevitable that she would suffer psychological and emotional damage because of it, was it not?’

  ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  ‘Now, imagine that this child is placed for adoption, on your understanding what has been put in place to prevent exactly the same thing happening again when and if this mother has another child?’

  ‘Nothing as far as I know.’

  ‘Do you regard that as satisfactory?’

  ‘That’s not for me to say. But, I’m afraid what I am saying is that, for whatever reason, it is too late now to do anything about this child.’

  Well, I did my best but faced with the evidence of the psychologist, the recommendation of the guardian that the baby should be placed for adoption and the weight of evidence from the social services, the outcome was inevitable.

  And then, when the case had finished, there was the question of how to deal with a heartbroken mother. What can you say to a nineteen-year-old mother in circumstances like that? Yes, the interests of her child were said to be the paramount consideration of the court. But does that mean you ditch parents? Does it? Really? And how long until she has the next one, lining the pockets of the lawyers and so-called professionals?

  Chapter Nine

  The letter from Clarissa came on Wednesday, in the middle of that case, as a PDF attachment to an email. It had been countersigned by each of the equity partners. I have kept a copy of it in the file that I have at home for personal stuff and, every now and again, I read it to remind myself why I have done what I have.

  ‘Dear Jonathan,’ it started. ‘We were deeply disappointed by the very negative attitude that you displayed at the partners’ meeting when the senior partner raised for discussion the issue of whether we should continue to do legally aided work. As she made very clear from the moment she introduced the issue for debate, she was doing no more than initiating discussion about a process of enquiry and consultation that, no doubt, will take some months to conclude. Your intemperate attempt to block that discussion and your dismissive rejection of the good intent of the equity partners traversed the unity upon which this firm has always been based. Please may we ask you to reflect upon this and avoid any repetition of the type of incident that occurred at the meeting? We trust that you will also observe and respect the confidentiality that attaches to partnership meetings and not discuss this issue with others, especially other employees of the firm; I have to warn you that any breach of this requirement would be regarded very seriously.

  ‘We are also deeply disappointed to learn that you decided, without discussion with any of us, to clear many of your own appointments with privately paying clients to cover for Mr Pedersen’s legally aided work in his absence. This should not have occurred. In future you must discuss any material changes to your work pattern, such as those which have now occurred at your sole election, with one of us. You have elected to cover for Mr Pedersen until the end of this week. After that you must return to your normal duties please, unless specifically agreed with the senior partner. Again, we regret to say that any breach of this requirement will also be regarded very seriously.

  ‘Please keep a copy of this letter for your records. Yours ever, Clarissa.’

  I have learnt never to reply to an email in anger. However, I did email back immediately to say: ‘Dear Clarissa. Thank you for your email. I will respond to it formally once I have had time to reflect upon its contents. Please be so kind as to keep a copy of this email and of the email that I intend to send to you. As ever, Jonathan.’ Then I wrote out a draft of my reply and played around with its wording during the day. I also printed off a copy of the letter that Clarissa had sent, avoiding the mistake of forwarding it to anyone; I had no doubt that my emails over the work system would be policed from that point onwards.

  The trick in replying to that sort of email, I think, is to keep it short and not give anything away. I imagined myself in an employment tribunal being cross-examined about my reply in a claim by me for wrongful dismissal. How would it stand up to scrutiny under heavy artillery fire? Further, I made very sure that I did not discuss the letter that I had received or my reply with anyone so that, if asked to account for myself on oath in court, I could give a truthful reply that I had kept it all to myself. So, this is what it looked like when it was finally sent out the following day, Thursday:

  Dear Clarissa,

  It was good of you to speak to me yesterday. Thank you.

  Please can I assure you that my commitment to the work of this firm remains as absolute as it always has been. As you know, I have worked for this firm for many years now, much longer than several of the equity partners, and I take my responsibilities as head of the family department exceptionally seriously. I am sure that, on reflection, you will want to recognise the considerable efforts that I have made to build up this side of the firm’s business and will accept that I have done so. I am also sure that, if you reread my contract of employment, you will want to pay particular attention to the passages within it, especially those in paragraph 2.7, which state that I am responsible for the day-to-day management of the firm’s family law practice. I have not done anything that takes me outside the parameters of the contractual expectations of that document and have no intention of doing so either.

  I do not accept that I behaved in an inappropriate way at the meeting last Thursday. Please find attached the minutes of the meeting that I made immediately afterwards. My complaint was that the issue of the continuation of the firm’s legal aid contract was raised without notice at the meeting; it was not on the agenda and nobody had told me that the issue would be raised, despite my responsibilities as head of the family law department. I am sure that you will acknowledge that its omission from the agenda that was circulated a week before the meeting was regrettable and procedurally irregular, although I am also sure that pressure of work must have played a part in the oversight that occurred.

  As to Mr Pedersen’s work, the decisions that I made fell squarely within the responsibilities that are delegated to me under the terms of my contract. I had to act quickly because there were court hearings to cover. I made emergency provision to cover his court duties this week but intend to revert to covering my own work (together with the backlog that has been created by the need to take the urgent steps that I did) next week. The effect has been that I have taken on a very considerable additional workload this week to the significant disadvantage of myself and of my family. I had hoped that my efforts might have received recognition, but I anticipate that there must have been some misunderstandings and misperceptions. Nobody has ever doubted my commitment to my clients and I am sure that you will be good enough to accept that there is no basis whatsoever for doing so now.

  It has always been a great pleasure to work with you and the other partners and I very much look for
ward to continuing, over many years ahead, the very good relationship that we have all developed. In particular, you and I have always worked in a collaborative and friendly way for the better good of the firm and those that it employs. You will recollect, no doubt, paying tribute to our good relationship and to my efforts for the firm during the partners’ meeting last year in terms that feature very clearly within the minutes of that meeting, a copy of which, like you, I have retained.

  With best wishes and many thanks.

  As ever, Jonathan.’ As I pressed the send button, I muttered, ‘Chew on that, you bitch,’ and got on with my work. She didn’t reply.

  Chapter Ten

  Seb didn’t come in at all that week, but on Friday he sent me an email saying that he would do the three-day case that was in his diary for the following week, starting on Monday. I arranged for the papers to be taken to his home by taxi.

  The next Monday passed without incident but then on Tuesday, things fell apart for him completely. He had left home early to come into the office before court to do paperwork. As a result, Freja had been left with the children. She had dropped Theo off at his nursery on time but then had gone back home with the baby Lucas. At about eleven o’clock, there was a frantic call from Freja, asking to speak to Seb urgently. The switchboard put the call through to Jane. Freja was crying and saying that she couldn’t cope.

  There was no way that Seb could be pulled out of court in the middle of a case and so Jane rang me to ask what she should do. I was in the middle of a meeting with another rich divorce client so left her to the tender mercies of the barrister to speak to Freja on the phone. I had met Freja quite a few times by then, but did not know her anything like as well as I do now.

  ‘I need Seb here, Jon. I really need him to come home right now.’ She was sniffing and crying down the phone.

  ‘Why, what’s happening?’ She sounded right off the scale.

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know how to say it. It’s just… I’m frightened…’ and then she started crying again and speaking in Danish.

  ‘Freja, where are you? Tell me where you are and I will come and find you.’

  ‘I need Seb, Jon. I really need him here to look after the boys. It’s not fair on them.’

  ‘Freja, we can’t get in touch with him now. He’s in court. I’ll come and be with you until he’s free. Where are you?’

  Eventually, she told me that she was at home with Lucas and that Theo did not need to be picked up until 3 p.m. I had to go back to tell the client and the barrister that I had been called away as a result of an emergency, knowing all too well that there would be inevitable complaints that would follow from the client and the usual battle with Boadicea.

  ‘Hi, Susan. I’ve got a bit of a problem here.’ I had rung the surgery from the car and asked them to give her a message. She was ringing me back.

  ‘I’ll see if I can get one of the other doctors to cover some of my appointments. Ring you back.’ Ten minutes later she rang back and said that she would drive to Freja’s home by 2 p.m.

  So, that’s how Seb’s life went pear-shaped. Susan arrived bang on time. She wrote a prescription for Freja to have some Valium and spoke to her with all the gentleness that Susan has; kindly, in her soft voice, holding Freja’s hand. I hovered around, trying to make myself useful, but not achieving anything other than keeping Lucas, and later Theo, entertained. We stayed with them that afternoon until Seb got home. Seb then finished off the case the following day with his mother coming over to help Freja with the children, but there was no way that he could continue to work while all that was going on. Once again, Susan, my wonderful wife, sorted everything out.

  ‘Seb needs to get himself signed off. I’ll speak to his GP if he likes.’ And she did just that.

  So, in the end, Seb was signed off for stress and that, in turn, led to real financial problems for him. His rights to sickness pay under his contract were limited to a month on full pay, and then to another month on half pay. State sickness benefit was about £85 a week at the time. Anyway, after a few weeks, his doctor felt unable to sign him off for stress any longer as there was nothing actually wrong with Seb – he just didn’t feel able to leave Freja alone with the kids.

  ‘Sickness benefit is not ‘I’ve got trouble at home benefit,’ his doctor eventually told him, apparently.

  So Seb resigned and, of course, with resignation he lost any entitlement to other benefits for nine weeks. How was he supposed to pay for the house and everything else?

  ‘We need to help them. We earn enough.’ How many wives would take that line about a husband’s work colleague? But Susan took it.

  ‘Between us we earn over £275,000 a year. We can’t just stand back and watch Seb and Freja lose the roof over their heads.’

  I spoke to the mortgage company on Seb’s behalf and agreed a reduced mortgage payment for six months. Beyond that, Susan and I paid two of their credit card bills and gave them £6,000 – the most capital they could have without their benefits being affected. We also kept them afloat for the first nine weeks. It took a lot of persuading for Seb to accept it all but, in the end, we called it a loan. It made no difference to us.

  As I expected, Clarissa was horrid about the whole issue. I could almost feel the ripple of delight when she heard of his resignation. It was just what she needed to help with her plan to stop legal aid.

  ‘Should we not at least pay him something to help him on his way?’ I needn’t have bothered even asking.

  ‘I’ll speak to the other partners.’

  And I’m sure she did, and I am equally sure that they also saw that this was an opportunity to give legal aid work a hard kick in the bollocks. What hope that the death-scavengers from probate or the commercial guys who got their rocks off on money would ever agree to help someone financially? The answer to my question came back very soon later – ‘No.’ What’s more, she even asked me to explain to her in writing why I had gone off to see Freja that afternoon.

  ‘Why do you fucking think?’ is what I wrote in the first draft of my email, but Jane told me not to send it. ‘Because she was very unwell. Please come and speak to me in my office if you wish to discuss this further,’ was my eventual reply.

  So, bang went Seb’s job. Susan and I sorted out some therapy for him and for Freja, and it was so good to watch them both gain in confidence as the therapy took hold. It was touch and go for Freja for a while but, by the end of six months she pulled through and got herself off the pills. It was a long and hard graft for them both, but that is not my story to tell.

  Best story from Seb’s therapy?

  ‘Tell me,’ his therapist apparently asked him once, ‘what happens if you don’t express your anger?’

  ‘You murder your fucking therapist,’ Seb replied – or so he told me. But see? He really did learn. I think I taught him well.

  What did matter to Susan and me, though, was the way that Seb, Freja and the two boys became part of our family. Our kids worship Seb. He knows just how to be with them, how to mess around in play, but also help them with things. And Freja is a soft, kind, beautiful woman whose gentleness would bring tears to my eyes at times as she spoke of her love for her two very good-looking boys and for her very handsome husband. She is also a brilliant artist and used painting as part of her therapy – she is now a very successful painter. And what goes around, comes around, as this story shows.

  Chapter Eleven

  All that happened over the summer. Although English summers are full of rain, at least they are moderately warm and so Harry was pretty chirpy for much of the time. But by November, it was dark and beginning to get cold. Every time I saw him, I could sense that he was getting more and more worried about the winter ahead.

  ‘How are you going to manage when it gets really cold, Harry?’ I asked him one morning.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. I’ve managed before.’

  ‘How do you keep warm?’

  ‘Turn up the central heating.’ He was tr
ying to put on a brave face.

  ‘No, really?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m trying to find somewhere to live but… well, you know what it’s like.’

  ‘Let me think about it, Harry. I’ll see what I can find out.’

  I got nowhere. The local authority housing officer that I spoke to was both sincere and useless; he used words that I did not understand but which, when summarised, meant, ‘nothing we can offer’. If that was the case, why not just say it without committing people to listening to push button messages on the phone and repetitive, electronically reproduced music (what is worse – ‘Air on a bloody G String’ again).

  The housing charities I rang couldn’t help either. They were swamped with referrals and none of them held any housing stock of their own.

  ‘There must be something that can be done,’ I kept finding myself saying.

  As one lady told me: ‘If it was as easy as that, there would be no homeless people; we would have found homes for them all.’ I don’t think that there used to be this problem with homelessness when I was young. Maybe there was and I just didn’t see it.

  Susan and I even looked at paying for the deposit on a rented flat for Harry – £800 or thereabouts – but the only flats we could find also had landlords that wanted us to guarantee the rent for at least six months. However much sympathy I felt for Harry, I was not doing that. I didn’t even ask Susan what she thought because, knowing her, she would have said that we should do it. I just told her no one would accept him.

  So, I bought Harry a tent. It cost £49.99 from a camping shop and came with a free sleeping bag. At the time it went some way to salving my conscience but was sticking a temporary plaster over a very large wound and, in the end, it just made things worse. How? Like this:

  It was the pre-Christmas everyone-gets-pissed time, lots of office workers, out of their skulls on drink, wandering around in costumes singing and behaving like leery idiots.