A nice episode. There are A and B threads here, the B thread being that gorgeous, if bland, Fiona Allways (Rosalind Landor) has married a merchant banker and left (I think Landor's career took her to the US) and Rumpole has to persuade Chambers to accept another lady pupil in the line of Trant and Allways.
When it turns out that Ballard believes applicant Liz Probert (Samantha Bond) is the daughter of a clergyman Rumpole doesn't correct his error. Actually Liz is the daughter of a prominent left-wing politician called 'Red Ron' Probert (based upon the then head of the Greater London Council 'Red Ken' Livingstone).
The main case deals with the travails of Timson clan member Hugh, who keeps stolen goods in his freezer and garage. The police raid the freezer and find stolen silver; however Timson claims to have purchased this 'down the pub' and as the owners have claimed insurance, nobody comes forward to claim them and Rumpole gets Timson off.
Insurance is the 'connecting thread here. Timson doesn't learn and when the police raid his garage, this time they find cases of wine. Once again, Timson is prosecuted.
Claude is something of a 'wine snob' - which Rumpole most certainly isn't - and when Claude invites him to a rather upmarket and snooty blind wine tasting, Rumpole is unfamiliar with both procedure and products. He finds the tasting pretentious and obnoxious, which is how he also rates Claude's old school 'chum' Martin Vanberry (the excellent Stephen Greif, aka Space Commander Travis in the first series of 'Blakes' 7'), now a wine dealer who is hosting the tastings. Rumpole takes Vanberry's measure when he describes Claude as a 'Pill' at school, meaning he required medicine- ie, beating him up. Nice boy: and the boy is the father of the man.
Nevertheless Rumpole finds Vanberry's cellar manager helpful and he also makes the acquaintance of Newspaper wine correspondent Honoria Bird, a snob like Vanberry; and a more down-to-earth wine connoisseur Monty Mantis, who is self taught.
Rumpole observes an interesting difference of opinion. After Claude has been eliminated from the contests, the next wine is approved and identified by Honoria Bird whilst Monty Mantis spits it out in disgust and leaves.
In Timson's next Old Bailey trial, both Vanberry and Bird are called as witnesses. Rumpole goes to see Mantis, who explains that the wine he tasted at the blind tasting was very cheap plonk and not at all what it was supposed to be.
In Court, Rumpole requests that a bottle of the wine used as evidence be opened and tasted. Judge Graves isn't keen, but faced with the suggestion of an appeal should he refuse, he backs down and permits the tasting to proceed.
Honoria Bird immediately identifies the wine as very poor but when Rumpole presses her on the events he observed at the wine tasting, she is forced to admit that she was covering for Vanberry and that Mantis had been correct.
Rumpole takes matters further, supported by the evidence of Vanberry's cellar manager. It transpires that Vanberry has transferred the contents of expensive wine to other bottles, substituting very cheap plonk, then permitted his cellar to be 'burgled' to order, in order to claim on the insurance. Hugh Timson picked up the wine from his 'contact' at the pub.
Timson gets off a second time, while presumably Vanberry now faces prosecution for insurance fraud.
An entertaining romp.
When it turns out that Ballard believes applicant Liz Probert (Samantha Bond) is the daughter of a clergyman Rumpole doesn't correct his error. Actually Liz is the daughter of a prominent left-wing politician called 'Red Ron' Probert (based upon the then head of the Greater London Council 'Red Ken' Livingstone).
The main case deals with the travails of Timson clan member Hugh, who keeps stolen goods in his freezer and garage. The police raid the freezer and find stolen silver; however Timson claims to have purchased this 'down the pub' and as the owners have claimed insurance, nobody comes forward to claim them and Rumpole gets Timson off.
Insurance is the 'connecting thread here. Timson doesn't learn and when the police raid his garage, this time they find cases of wine. Once again, Timson is prosecuted.
Claude is something of a 'wine snob' - which Rumpole most certainly isn't - and when Claude invites him to a rather upmarket and snooty blind wine tasting, Rumpole is unfamiliar with both procedure and products. He finds the tasting pretentious and obnoxious, which is how he also rates Claude's old school 'chum' Martin Vanberry (the excellent Stephen Greif, aka Space Commander Travis in the first series of 'Blakes' 7'), now a wine dealer who is hosting the tastings. Rumpole takes Vanberry's measure when he describes Claude as a 'Pill' at school, meaning he required medicine- ie, beating him up. Nice boy: and the boy is the father of the man.
Nevertheless Rumpole finds Vanberry's cellar manager helpful and he also makes the acquaintance of Newspaper wine correspondent Honoria Bird, a snob like Vanberry; and a more down-to-earth wine connoisseur Monty Mantis, who is self taught.
Rumpole observes an interesting difference of opinion. After Claude has been eliminated from the contests, the next wine is approved and identified by Honoria Bird whilst Monty Mantis spits it out in disgust and leaves.
In Timson's next Old Bailey trial, both Vanberry and Bird are called as witnesses. Rumpole goes to see Mantis, who explains that the wine he tasted at the blind tasting was very cheap plonk and not at all what it was supposed to be.
In Court, Rumpole requests that a bottle of the wine used as evidence be opened and tasted. Judge Graves isn't keen, but faced with the suggestion of an appeal should he refuse, he backs down and permits the tasting to proceed.
Honoria Bird immediately identifies the wine as very poor but when Rumpole presses her on the events he observed at the wine tasting, she is forced to admit that she was covering for Vanberry and that Mantis had been correct.
Rumpole takes matters further, supported by the evidence of Vanberry's cellar manager. It transpires that Vanberry has transferred the contents of expensive wine to other bottles, substituting very cheap plonk, then permitted his cellar to be 'burgled' to order, in order to claim on the insurance. Hugh Timson picked up the wine from his 'contact' at the pub.
Timson gets off a second time, while presumably Vanberry now faces prosecution for insurance fraud.
An entertaining romp.
