The Injunction Unit
I was the first solicitor at Bradford Law Centre. When we opened our doors in 1981 we took on a number of volunteer advice workers. They had various motivations for helping, apart from altruism. One of them was an ex soldier who had been in Intelligence in Northern Ireland who just found civilian life incredibly boring.
We found ourselves obtaining quite a lot of injunctions, to the point where we had three people as our injunctions unit. They interviewed the clients, took statements, gathered information when necessary, applied for legal aid, lodged the papers at the court, and went to court. We were open one late evening a week. Our ex soldier was on duty one evening.
A man came in. He was living rough. He had been in a relationship. The relationship had broken down. The woman and her brother were looking for him intending to do him serious harm. They had attacked him once and they were looking for him again.
The worker took a statement and got the client to sign it. It gave full details of the sad story including names and addresses. The man was really in fear. It was agreed he would come back in the morning to complete and sign legal aid forms. Hopefully we would obtain a court order tomorrow afternoon.
No Show
Our worker was very surprised when the man did not turn up in the morning. We really had a smooth operation and we would have had a court order that afternoon. It required the man to come in and give some more signatures.
Our worker thought the man had really been in fear. He was astonished the man had not turned up.
The evening paper carried a story of an unidentified corpse found in a derelict house. The description of the age and height fitted the client. The person had been murdered. So the worker went to the morgue and asked to see the body to see if he could identify it.
It was the client.
Help The Police
Our worker went to the police station with the signed statement. The police were given an identity for the victim, the names and addresses of two suspects, and a full statement from the deceased.
Good questioning resulted in confessions, and the murderers went to prison for the murder they had committed.
Well done to our worker and to the police.
Justice was done, and done quickly.
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