Letter: Three cheers for classy judges

Sir: I met a very worried lady in my local last night. Her husband, she told me over lager and crisps, is accused of a bank robbery. It seems he was on the premises discussing business with the manager when it was found that large amounts of money were missing.

Mr Sikes underwent a long trial and, although found not guilty of stealing cash from the till, had still, in a second trial, to be cleared of robbing the vault.

Mrs Sikes confided, amid tears, that she had just had a chat with the judge involved. She'd explained to him, over a couple of Babychams, that she'd only just survived the first trial - "What with the kids and all," as she put it. She didn't know how on earth she'd cope with the second one.

The judge had listened very patiently to her story, dabbing his eyes with a tissue. "He was a real toff," said Mrs Sikes, "and I must say that all this stuff about people like meself being scorned by such as him is just rubbish. He said he fully understood how I felt, and how Bill himself must feel, and though he couldn't promise like, he'd see what he could do. It was just on the cards that he could stop this travesty, he said."

I left the pub considerably cheered. I've recently begun to feel very cynical about public standards in Great Britain. British justice, I now begin to think, may well be the best in the world.

TED BURFORD

London W5