Dalrymple recently attended the murder trial of Filipino nurse Victorino Chua, who poisoned 21 patients, and has high praise for the officials involved:

Not everyone likes lawyers, and some people hate them, but I have a great deal of respect for them, at least for those in the higher reaches of the profession. Their ability, seemingly effortless, to master technical matters to which they may never have given a moment’s attention before, as well as thousands of pages of documents, is admirable and even astonishing; and anyone who thinks that a court sitting of six hours a day is indicative of an easy life can never have sat through such a day.

Chua’s trial took three months, so complex was the evidence. Anybody who saw the prosecutor, Mr Peter Wright QC, in action would have wanted him as his defence counsel in the event of need. The judge’s mastery was evident.