Confessions of a deliciously indiscreet QC!

Diana? Two-faced. The Beatles? Duped by a conman. Nigella? We were instantly attracted. Brace yourself, m’luds, for some very candid case notes

‘It’s his business to tell the unvarnished truth’

ONE of the most celebrated barristers of his generation, Geoffrey Robertson QC was inspired to become a lawyer by reading Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations as a 14-year-old schoolboy in Sydney.

He wanted to emulate the famous character of Mr Jaggers, the lawyer dedicated to saving the lives of wretches at the Old Bailey.

Yet nothing in Dickens could have prepared him for the sheer variety of his own remarkable career which, for nearly half a century, has seen him tangling with the great, the good and the frankly notorious.

He has represented governments, celebrities and the most ordinary of citizens in a series of landmark legal cases concerning human rights, terrorism, protection from the crushing power of the State and the importance of the public’s right to know.

Impeccably connected and married for many years to novelist and commentator Kathy Lette, Robertson has been at the forefront of national life for the past five decades.

Perhaps it is no wonder that, while most in his position prefer to hide behind the cloak of discretion, he has made it his business to tell the unvarnished truth – and never more so than in his scintillating new memoirs, written with his trademark wit and insight.

They are a roll call of household names, whether he is preparing to skewer Princess Diana in the witness box, hobnobbing with a Beatle, hiding from assassins with Salman Rushdie, wooing Nigella Lawson, or defending Deepthroat, one of the most notorious pornographic films of all time.

Here, in our first extract from Rather His Own Man, the acclaimed QC recalls just a few his most extraordinary – and always uplifting – encounters…