Bias at the Old Bailey

Horace Rumpole: barrister at law, of Equity Court, the Temple, London; resident with spouse Hilda ('She Who Must Be Obeyed') at 25B Froxbury Court, Gloucester Road, is a larger-than-fiction character who has given pleasure to millions. With his less-than-salubrious hat perched on his head, a glass of Chateau Thames Embankment in his hand, a small cigar protruding from his pursed lips, Rumpole is, as Alan Coren once pointed out, "the best mock-heroic fatty since Falstaff." Whether facing the Mad Bull (Judge Roger Bullingham) down the Old Bailey, or working a small indecent exposure brief at the Uxbridge Magistrates Court, Rumpole is an English eccentric extraordinaire. Leo McKern, though Australian, was born to portray him.

At the same time, there is a burr beneath the saddle of John Mortimer's most celebrated creation. Behind the stories of the eternally junior barrister, perpetually passed-over for promotion to silk by someone with better connections (or less anti-social habits), lies a web of anti-Christian sentiment. John Mortimer's opinions, some might say prejudices, are not particularly well-disguised.

For example, in "Rumpole and the Rotten Apple," the prosecuting officer is called Superintendent Glazier. He is "a tall, rather pale officer with dark hair brushed straight back, wearing a blue suit and a Police Rugby Club tie." He claims that it is his Christian duty "to find a good word to say for all sorts of villains... but I can't stand a bent copper." On his lapel, the Superintendent wears a small pin, bearing the insignia of an organization known as "Police Witness to God." Rumpole compares Glazier to an officer in Cromwell's army, determined to stamp out corruption and backsliding. Of course, it comes as no surprise to discover that Glazier is the rotten apple, and that he has been deliberately framing an innocent fellow-officer. The implication is obvious - Christians are sanctimonious hypocrites.

Mortimer's treatment of "Soapy Sam" Ballard, the head of Chambers, is slightly less unsympathetic, but the picture he paints is still of a small-minded, arrogant man, more concerned about petty rules than justice, not averse to bending those rules to suit himself. Ballard is, naturally, an avid supporter of "The Lawyers as Churchgoers Society."

Rumpole, himself, is a son of the parsonage. His father, a Church of England vicar, did not, apparently, feel obliged to believe many of the 39Articles of Anglicanism. He detested Bible Class. However, since he had no other skills with which to feed his family, the elder Rumpole remained in his unfortunate profession. Once again the implication is clear - no thinking person could subscribe to the Christian faith. All that is left for Rumpole of the Old Bailey is a loveless marraige and a few choice phrases from the Oxford Book of English Verse.

Mortimer's intolerant dogmatism is as unattractive as it is unnecessary. Bias does not improve the stories; but it does tell us something about the author. Why do the television watchdogs tolerate such behavior? If the object of the author's scorn was castigated because of the color of his skin, or if the snide remarks referenced Islam, the books would be held in contempt. But because Mortimer's prejudice is anti-Christian, no-one seems to complain.