DEFENCE OF DR. ADAMS

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28259, 23 April 1957, Page 6

DEFENCE OF DR. ADAMS

Fame Brought To Counsel LONDON. Dr. John Bodkin Adams has given his name to one of the most famous murder trials in history, but fame, immediate and dazzling, has also come to Frederick Geoffrey Lawrence, Q.C., who defended the doctor. Lawrence is the man who brought back to the criminal bar a magical combination of simple eloquence and skilled forensic thought. His triumph at 55 fulfils a prophecy in circles where the finer points of advocacy find a mark long before they are evident to the rest, of us. It means also that a pleader has been found to fill the shoes of Sir Hartley Shawcross, who relinquished his acknowledged leadership of the Common Law Bar last month. Few of the people who watched and listened throughout the 17 days the trial lasted will doubt that now, but some of them did when it opened. To them the man with the mild voice and the slow smile, who was called to the bar of the Middle Temple in 1930, lacked too many of the assets popular conception deems necessary in a legal giant. Physically he was the smallest man in court. A bowler hat and a Melton overcoat suit him better than a wig and gown. His voice had none of the rolling thunder the gallery expected. It was something different—meticulous tones which penetrate as far and whisper reason. “No Tricks” In a setting which once vied with the stage as a place for histrionics he had no tricks. Not for him the stabbing pencil of a Norman Birkett, the sharp, Irish humour of an Edward Carson, the emphatic fist of a Marshall Hall. But from the giants of the past he borrowed the hidden quality on which they really built success. Throughout gruelling day-long cross-examinations he never spoke an unconsidered word. In a trial in which medical evidence was highly technical—and all-impor-tant—he never asked a question which was faulty. His manner with the witnesses 'was brilliant. The nervous he put at ease with the frank appeal: “I am seeking the truth. Please will you help me?” The reluctant he persuaded with a brand of logic they could not deny. And there were moments when his glasses flashed as he tilted his chin at the witness box, and the rapier went home. Doubtful answers brought from him a drawn-out throaty “Ye-es,” then the devastating question. In the 40 hours he was on his feet he never raised his voice. He never had to. * "Grasp of Facts” As counsel in divorce actions and breach of promise cases, as prosecutor in a trial for attempted murder, his grasp of facts was outstanding. He got the Recordership of Tenterden in Kent, in 1948, a minor accolade, but it was followed in 1953 by the Recordership of Canterbury. A year later he took on the extra judicial role of chairman of the West Sussex Quarter Sessions. Over tankards of ale in the vaults of the Royal Courts of Justice the forecasters gossip confidently now of an elevation to the High Court Bench.