Gilbert Blades - The Scourge of UK MOD Courts Martial
 

This is a spin off from another thread, but I wonder if anyone has any stories about Gilbert Blades (a civlian solicitor advocate who defended countless sailors, soldiers and airmen at MOD courts martial, all over the world, usually winning his case. He also played a large part in bringing about the reforms to Court Martial procedures and organization which have taken place since the mid 90's).

I watched him badgering a young female SAC prosecution witness once:

GB - Now young lady, I understand that you went to a drinking club on the station after your shift. What time did you get there?

SAC - About 2 p.m. sir.

GB - When did you leave the club?

SAC - about 7 p.m. sir.

GB - What did you have to drink during that time?

SAC - 2 brandy sours sir.

GB - Are you sure you had only 2 brandy sours in 5 hours?

SAC - Yes sir.

GB - Do you expect this court to believe that after 5 hours in this club you were not drunk?

SAC - No sir. I was out of my brains. After one brandy sour I'm anyone's.

Muted chuckles across the courtroom.

Rgds SOS

I knew her well :O:O

I think I married her.

Wish I had!

Rgds SOS

So do I! :ok:

GB is overated. Having seen him first hand (not as a defendant/accused!) he's great at mitigation but not so good at getting them off the charges. He bored the JA rotten, who, after 5 mins of GB waffling, asked "Mr B, please get to the point, we haven't got all day."

I have to agree with Twon. I remember him in action in the 80's, coming out with nonsense phrases "As Hamlet said, 'Something is Rotten in the state of Denmark', as there is something rotten in the prosecutions case". All air, and they both got 6 months. ;)

"Mr B, please get to the point, we haven't got all day."


To which I hope good old GB replied, "Oh but your honour, we have!"

Had the (dubious) pleasure of being involved in a number of CMs with GB defending. My memories of him was of a pleasant chap with a friendly manner. His success came I think in part from his opposition in the court....some of the Legal Branch officers (there was only a handful in the 90s) barely knew what day of the week it was as they were running from pillar to post prosecuting all over the place. I would say their knowledge of their briefs was fairly flimsy in many cases. GB was also a loose cannon and would pick something out of the air and the RAF would be left wallowing. I recall one case where he heard on arrival that a witness had been hospitalised way down south (Halton Hosp)...in a flash this witness became the most important man in the world and he couldn't possibly defend his client unless this man was brought to give evidence. After a great deal of chasing this man down ( word we had was that he was vsi)...the medics gave the go-ahead for him to give evidence from his sickbed. More chasing round to organise a charabanc outing to said sickbed about 300 miles south of our location....when GB was presented with master plan to allow him to question said witness...a sharp intake of breath and would you believe it ...he had second thoughts and that particular witness really did not have anything to add to his defence case. His ploy had it not been countered..would have resulted in him asking for a dismissal. He did get his client off the charge which had he been found guilty would have seen him doing a fair amount of time in MCTC.

How on earth could the JA possibly say such a thing? There are no time limits on justice.....

I heard tell that, on seeing Gilbert's rather flamboyant arrival (posh car with personal plates etc.), the prosecuter was seen to turn to a colleague and ask "Is this bloke any good...??".

It may or may not have been a case involving a caravan in a field not far from a certain East Anglian aerodrome....

He was (is?) good at what he did, he recognised that every single person in the Courts Martial system wasn't particularly experienced in their roles and he picked that apart with his own extensive experience. He's historically made a career out of making military prosecution people (and witnesses) look silly or unreliable through loopholes and aggressive cross examination.

Being a defence lawyer of course he always represented the "guilty bastard" and seeing as he specialises on picking technical holes in the CM system, it stands to reason that a lot of pretty bad people have walked free because of him.

My first encounter was in the early 1990s where he was defending 2 "policemen" (I hate to use the word in this case) accused of theft. They had been caught red handed by a fireman, and had admitted guilt in the hours after the event, to several parties, me included as they sought to get advice on how to lessen the blow of repercussions.
They got free thanks to Gilbert's cross examination on techinical points. That's how he always won, his targets just weren't experienced enough and he'd tie them in knots on procedure.

Thankfully it's changed now, the Defence Legal Services, and the Service Prosecuting Authority (as well as the Service Police) are more professional and more experienced and his company doesn't do so well these days.

I was on guard on the main gate at RAF Wyton in the early 90's when a Rolls Royce came down to the gate. Treating it just as any other vehicle that turned up at the gate I asked the driver to pull over to the side of the road for a quick vehicle search, the driver piped up with "dont you know who I am" etc etc and came across as very up himself so to speak. Turns out it was GB, I was non the wiser as I was still wet behind the ears. Still did my job and searched his vehicle though before I was going to raise that barrier.

If that involved the RAFP mistakenly not covering an overgrown wild back entrance that a mangy cat couldn't get through but by which means the accused allegedly left the said caravan then we might be talking about the same case Beags.

As OC PSF at that certain East Anglian aerodrome I had the dubious pleasure of administering that CM

In my day if you had legal representation you were obviously guilty.

I agree with pamac51. At a time when a court martial was seen as an administrative mechanism to give "Guilty bastards" more than the 28 days available to a Station Commander I had some success defendingl. It wasn't hard, just a careful reading through of the evidence and a bit of digging at witnesses in court. I think that courts were used to having defending officers doing mitigation only and were flummoxed when some real defending was thrown at them.

At one Court Martial where I was an OUI, the JA in his summing up said:

"Despite the efforts of the Prosecuting Officer, this Court Martial has found you Guilty..."

It was well observed as the flt lt concerned didn't know his arse from his charge sheet.

He is still serving, but now holds far more senior rank.

sisemen, it is indeed possible that we are talking about the same case.....and a gap in the hedge through which an Animal might perhaps have been able to have left the field, without the RAFP having observed such a departure.....:\

As a member of a CM some years ago, I saw GB perform on two back-to-back cases. On both occasions the Prosecution was ill-prepared (the LEGAD arrived for the first hearing without Oxfords and a Service Dress Hat (cue OC Supply rapidly procuring said articles). However, I'm not sure that GB was much better prepared. He breezed in to the Court Room and appeared to have little knowledge of the case, and blustered, until the JA called a stay in proceedings so that the defence could be prepared...

I understood the stake out ceased when it was determined that the caravan occupant had settled down for the night thus leaving the caravan unobserved. Had a back door been used, how did the acquited later attend the parish council meeting 82 miles away as evidenced by the chairman of the parish council and the council minutes.

Not GB, but advised by him, counsel at CM at Akrotiri to chief prosecution witness:

". . . when your husband was away on duty, were you a frequent habitue of the airport lounge bar at Teeside airport?"

"No, sir."

"I put it to you that the barman by the name of John would recognise you. I say again, were you a frequent habitue of the airport lounge bar at Teeside airport."

"yes."

"No more questions."

The accused was acquited and retired not long afterwards.

I was sitting in the mess at Uxbridge in 2004 ish and was joined by a dapper chap who engaged me in conversation. I was there to give a presentation to our PR bunch and he was defending someone at a CM. I was amazed when he told me who he was, I was expecting someone far older. Had a brilliant and very entertaining 1/2 hr with him and he truly is the intellect you would expect, but scourge - not sure, from his intimations, the Service(s) made it very easy for him to make his money because of their amateurism. As for our Legal Branch - you would not expect GB to say as much, but I sensed they were easy meat for him!

My Gilbert Blades Moment!!!
 

I was at Sleaford Tech in the early 80's and was 'invited' to defend SAC 'R'. R had maintained that he would plead not guilty and his brief would tear the air force to shreds etc etc. However, as the great day approached and he had made no effort to sort his defence out, he changed his mind with about 48 hours to go and decided to pled guilty.

I told the SWO to get R to come to my office at 0800 hours the following morning, so that I could sort out the plea in mitigation and at 0805, I called the SWO and asked where R was. Frantic search of barrack block revealed no R but the court martial assembled the following day with the Permanent President being briefed that we didn't have an accused. The Prosecuter and I then marched ourselves smartly in and the President looked at me as though I was a rather unpleasant smell and said: "What did R say to you, the last time you spoke to him"?

I drew myself up to my full 5 feet 5 inches and trying hard not to wet myself, replied, with as much dignity as could muster: "Sir, I have never met the accused"! At this point the whole farce collapsed and I was given the legal version of 'go forth and multiply'.

Some months later and after he had run out of money, R surrendered himself at the Brit embassy in a nearby country and was returned to the unit. OCPMS gleefully informed me that I could now get my chance to defend R but I countered that, on the contrary, I was first witness for the prosecution on a charge of absence without leave.

In the years which followed, I have always claimed that I defended an airman who intended to plead guilty but due to the power of my advocacy, the court did not find him so.

I think it's a good one - the current Mrs O-D, who knows about these things and was an OCPMS herself, thinks I'm being a plonker!

O-D

STH - similar story
 

I was senior member of a district CM some few years ago.

The WRAF, Flt Lt, prosecutor (RAF Legal Branch) seemed to be having trouble understanding her brief and had made a number of obvious mistakes.

During a recess, the President of the Board advised her to get it together. He pointed out that the parents of the accused, sitting in the front row of the public gallery seemed to be very distressed.

"Oh no, sir" she said "they aren't his parents, they're mine - this my first case"

Bless!

Rgds SOS

I recall a Colonel in AbbeyWood taking the same view. He told everyone who would listen that the Private would suffer for the inconvenience of him being dragged from Bristol to Colchester for a day. Last time I heard he was a Brigadier and still a wan*er. At least in the Services you’re allowed a Defence / representation! In the CS the man bringing the charge against you is also allowed to be judge and jury.

I remember a case where some one always in trouble was charged and found guilty, he was told if he would appear in front of him again that in no uncertain terms he would have the book thrown at him, the guy was awarded a fine of something stupid like a fiver, and let out a loud snigger, he was promptly marched out, charged with sniggering and marched back in to a furious boss..... at the line will you accept my punishment or elect for a CM he chose the CM for sniggering and nothing anyone could do would sway him, :E he maintained he was trying to contain a sneeze as he was at attention... :ok: they had to throw it out in the end as no one was going to Court Marshal anyone for a snigger and how could you disprove him.

Some of the posts here are on a par with this...almost!

Talking of legal bods, anyone come across Ronald Drake?


7700

Nice link, goudie

Rgds SOS

I suspect that the legal procedures manual was borrowed from here:

Twelve Red-bearded Dwarfs

When I started this thread, I was being a bit tongue-in-cheek and I hoped there would be some light-hearted replies and, bless you, there were.

Then we had a couple of sour-puss posts.

I had served on about a dozen, or more, CM and had encountered GB several times. He was quite a personable character and I admired his flair and, more importantly, his hatred of unfairness.

So, just now, I used all the resources of my Fujitsu-Siemens Amilo laptop, Google etcetera, to dig into his background.

The man spent at least 40 years defending service persons; he got a significant proportion of them off, not that they they were bad but because many of the cases against them were wrong or just lazy.

He gave written evidence to the house of lords and he appeared in person before the Defence Select Committee. He argued many cases in the European Court of Human Rights. He was not a lightweight and his essential position was that members of the armed forces should have the same rights as any civilian citizen of the UK.

If you disagree with him, I don't know what to say.

Rgds SOS

I wonder if he defended one of the Flems at Bruggen when several were arrested for drugs on the word of some cloggie many moons ago, it was a London Barrister one of the guys employed to defend him and he tore them to shreds, one of the plods when searching the rooms found a picture of one of the guys with his arm round another at a party, like you do when getting your pic taken at a party and jokingly asked is this your boyfriend? it came back to haunt him later...
Another swore they were released at XYZ from interrogation etc and it was in the logbook as such, however the OO on the night doing his rounds said the prisoners were still been interviewed well after the time entered as they were off the Squadron, so he recognised them.
I believe one SIB was returned to uniform over it all and the rest of the lads got off, the first had pleaded guilty if my memory serves me right.

You knew it was bad when RAFG called up the Squadron on Red Flag wind up at Lossie and said send SAC XYZ back to Bruggen.... Arrangements were being made to get him south and on the Brittania shuttle when RAFG said not quick enough, put him in the back of a Jag and fly him back!!!

The rest were met off the Herc as we returned and taken away for interviews.

They were immediately taken off aircraft work, so we were in effect 5 (i think) odd guys down, though the site was immaculate as they were put on gash jobs while the case went on.

GB was called upon to defend an airman from a Lincolnshire station some years ago 197? The charge was theft, and DLS failed to convince the CM of the accuseds guilt resulting in him walking free from court.

Prior to the CM the co accused, charged with aiding and abetting in the theft, had entered a guilty plea when up before the staish. He was offered a 28 day holiday in Essex.

Having returned from his hols, and attending the CM, he was rather peeved to see his co accused "walk". It then dawned upon him that if his partner was not guilty of theft, how could he be guilty of aiding and abetting him? After a lot of admin toing and froing, he had his 28 days pay restored and his conduct sheet wiped clean.

Called his office once to ask for advice on a minor legal issue, and spent a good half-hour chatting amiably about stuff. Came away with some advice on documentation which subsequently proved valuable when making a War Pension claim.

Then surely he could also be in for compensation for wrongful imprisonment.

dkh....
 

Good for him! That was a consequence of the law.

The law may not be just, in the ethical sense of the word; but it's all we've got to regulate public behaviour.

The law in UK is, I believe, a set of codes set out by government officials, sponsored and then agreed, or amended, by democratically elected representatives. It includes both criminal and disciplinary (e.g. military discipline, etc) law.

There is also common law, which I don't understand and case law which seems to gradually add to the body of laws, but again I don't understand it.

As for civil law ...?

I'm not sure how Magna Carta and Habeus Corpus fit into the above, or how they were enacted, but I do know that they are still the core of our legal system in the uk and we owe all our precious freedoms to these ancient codes.

Gilbert Blades was not on the same plane as king John and Magna Carta but he seems to have spent his entire professional life (40ish years) looking after squaddies (of all uniform shades and sexes) while still finding time to help improve the application of military law at quite a high level.

But now I would really value some funny stories about him!!

Rgds SOS

Unlikely although not impossible in some circumstances, I would think. If a criminal act has taken place, the conviction of the alleged principal is not necessary to the conviction of an accomplice. He did after all plead guilty.

His plea of guilty to aiding and abetting had been accepted by staish. However, once his compadre was found not guilty there was nothing for him to aid and abet. I do not know about compo, I do know that he received restoration of lost pay for his time in Essex. Perhaps a compo case may be something GB would care to look into?

I suppose his guilty plea could be put down to his belief he may have been in the wrong, a fact that was later found to be not the case. Hence a chance to claim for his unlawful Holiday, somewhere I always felt sorry for the poor buggers going to.

It would appear times have changed.

At the CM did they find him not guilty because there was no proof or not guilty because there was no theft? Agree if there was no theft then he pleaded guilty to an offence which did not occur. However if there was a theft then he can still be guilty of aiding. After all he must have believed he was guilty to plead as such....