We never see judicial officers in Hong Kong being as candid as their UK counterparts or are willing to unveil their personal life to the public before retirement. The story below of the UK Judge is rather interesting and revealing. Mind you, bonkers is an adjective not a noun. It means crazy.
'I'm not angry': UK judge tells of partner's 'bonkers' affair
Date: August 13, 2012 - 6:18AMEDWARD MALNICK and WILLIAM LANGLEY in London
She is the judge whose QC partner left her for a paralegal 50 years his junior. Here Constance Briscoe gives her verdict on a 'bonkers' affair.
Constance Briscoe ... stunned by the affair.
HE WAS brilliant, a charmer, and one of London's more colourful barristers. She was exotic, outspoken and flying high as a pioneering black female judge. Their friends wished Anthony Arlidge and Constance Briscoe well, but in gossipy legal circles the question was asked: how could it not all go wrong?
When the news that it had done broke last week, both sides had their cases prepared. Judge Briscoe claimed that the 75-year-old silvery-haired QC with whom she had lived for 12 years was "bonkers".
Confirming that he had left the judge for a 25-year-old junior barrister called Heather Lockwood, Mr Arlidge said: "We are living together. The relationship is going very well."
Further complicating matters was the disclosure that Mr Arlidge remains married to Enid, the wife he broke up with almost 30 years ago, and there are hints that this lingering attachment may be the key to the whole awkward situation.
Speaking to The Sunday Telegraph, Judge Briscoe, 55, claimed that Mr Arlidge's defection came after she urged him finally to seek a divorce: "I did say to him, 'You've got to sort your affairs out. You've been separated for God knows how long, you need to get divorced."'
Instead of getting divorced, he went off with "this young lady".
Constance Briscoe, the daughter of Jamaican immigrants, is no stranger to heartbreak. Or to controversy.
Six years ago she published a bestselling memoir, Ugly, in which she detailed the abuse she allegedly suffered as a child. The book records how her mother, Carmen, neglected her, beat her for wetting the bed, taunted her about her looks and once refused to buy her school photograph saying: "You is too ugly."
Carmen, supported by some of her other six children, denounced the story as a pack of lies and sued for libel. A High Court jury sided with the author.
Judge Briscoe says she met Mr Arlidge "looking a bit down" in the cafe at the Old Bailey in 2000, where they were appearing in separate trials. She gave him blue "power beads" to improve his mood, and he responded. "He knew I was a very keen gardener so he invited me to his house to look at his herbaceous borders, but I didn't know a great deal about him at that time so I did a bit of research," she said.
"I knew about the intellect, I knew about the cases, I knew about the brain?... but I didn't know a lot about what he was about, so I did some research, rang up some of my friends and they all said the same thing - keep away from him.
"He's really very generous, very clever, wonderfully clever ... He has a phenomenal brain, which is why he is truly bonkers."
Mr Arlidge - the father-in-law of the BBC's economics editor, Stephanie Flanders - had recently broken up with Tracy Ayling, a fellow barrister with whom he had lived for 16 years. One of London's most eminent silks, he is described in Chambers Guide to the UK Legal Profession as "a speaker who instantly commands the attention of judge and jury".
On this occasion, he had no trouble commanding Judge Briscoe's. From her ghastly childhood, she had staged an impressive recovery, taking a law degree at Newcastle University, being called to the Bar in 1983, and becoming a recorder, or part-time judge, in 1986.
Although held up as an example of black advancement, Judge Briscoe says that her boyfriends have all been white, including Adam Wilson, a fellow lawyer with whom she has two children.
At first, it seems, things went swimmingly with Mr Arlidge. Judge Briscoe moved into his south London town house, where they discussed his retirement plans and how they might settle in France.
She says he "got on fantastically well" with her children. As a couple they were successful and popular, until, en route to a birthday party in late 2010, the QC dropped his bombshell.
"He told me that he had fallen in love," Judge Briscoe remembers. "I didn't know her age at the time. When he told me, I said, 'Well if you love her more than me I'll stand to one side.'
"'Oh,' he said, 'that's very decent of you.' Then the next day after this discussion I thought, 'Actually I don't think so.'
"So we had a discussion and I said, 'Hold on a minute. I don't think I am prepared to stand to one side.' He said, 'I think I'm falling in love.' I said, 'OK, you're falling in love. I'll tell you what, go and have your affair and get it out of your system. When you've got it out of your system come back - it's no big deal.'
"'Oh,' he said, 'I don't think Heather would like that.' I said, 'Hold on a minute, just tell me about how did this happen, when?' And he said, 'She got me when I was vulnerable.' I thought, 'What? She got you when you were vulnerable?'
"After that I discovered her age. Tony had said, to be fair to him, 'Constance, she's much younger than you.' I was thinking, 'She can't be that much younger because you're 20 years older than me."'
Judge Briscoe appears, in fact, to be more than fair to Mr Arlidge. "I have to say that people of all sorts of ages would find him attractive. He's witty, he's clever, he's intelligent, he's very generous, he's warm-hearted. Those are good qualities he still has, despite being bonkers.
"He told me her age when I asked. If I hadn't been sitting down I'm sure I would have fallen over. I was more than upset. My relationship with him at that time was a very good relationship. I'd been with him for 12 years, we'd seen each other literally every single day, my children adored him. Good luck to them, if they can make it work they have my blessing.
"Am I angry with him? No, I'm not. If Tony was ill and rang me up and said, 'Constance can you come and help me out, I'm not well,' of course I would. He still is razor sharp, so there are no excuses there. This is about an inability to realise that age catches up with all of us."
Miss Lockwood is attempting to find a pupillage, the step which will put her on the way to a full career as a barrister. The Oxford graduate, who was educated at Newcastle Grammar School, is said to enjoy sports. On a social networking website she describes herself as '5'11' and 'large'. She is currently a paralegal with a London law firm.
Her father, John, was struck off as a solicitor in 2009 after defrauding Zimbabwean farmers, telling them they could win compensation from the British government for having their land seized by Robert Mugabe's regime in return for a pounds 1,000 deposit. Her mother, Jacqueline, lives in Sunderland, and was unavailable for comment. Judge Briscoe is forgiving: "This Heather I have never met, I'm not interested. I had heard enough, 25 ... a student in Middle Temple and at the time they met she was looking for a pupillage, which she still doesn't have, and she was looking for hopefully a tenancy after that - so good luck to her is what I say."
How she dealt with the issue of her partner's new relationship may raise eyebrows. "I didn't want any gossip about what was going on?... So I told my good friends, my head of chambers, my clerks and then I told a number of people who I was absolutely confident would spread it.
"This was at a time when Tony and this young lady were trying to keep it a secret so I suppose to some extent I forced that issue, I wanted it out in the open.
"I don't ever want anyone to feel sorry for me because I don't feel sorry for myself and I don't think I'm the victim. I think the victim here is Tony, he's a victim of himself. I think she is a victim and that collectively they are the ones we should feel sorry for."
Older man runs off with younger woman is hardly new. Yet Judge Briscoe's suspicions about Mr Arlidge's hankering for his long lost wife, the mother of his four children, adds an intriguing twist.
The veteran barrister was, so to speak, keeping his counsel last week, confiding little more than that he and Heather - whom he is believed to have met at a Middle Temple dinner, the central London inn of court where they now share his flat - were happy together.
"I have met her mother, and she says that if Heather is happy, so is she," added Mr Arlidge.
Is everybody happy then? Not judging from an exchange of emails between the abandoned judge and her ex-lover. "I loved you unconditionally for the best part of 11 years," wrote Judge Briscoe. "I wanted nothing from you but your love, affection and company. You took my love, crushed it up and then you threw it in my face."
To which the man with the reputation as a charmer replied: "I am sorry all this has had such a bad effect on you. Though I seem to remember there had been some conditions attached to our relationship continuing."
Conditions?
The Sunday Telegraph
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