In l979 I began my career in the courts, appearing at Magistrates' and Crown Courts around the country. Despite prospects of working with large firms in the big cities, I stuck with Rotherham because I had grown to like it and its people.
In 1981 my pal Steve Wilford ('the stable one') and I formed Wilford Smith, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Steve Wilford and I had worked together in Barnsley in the 1960s, when he too was an office boy. We are equal partners in our firm, and anything we have done has been by agreement – to this day we don't have a formal partnership deed. We've had some ups and downs, but we're still there, fighting the corner for the little man.
At Wilford Smith I have worked on some controversial cases and along the way represented a number of remarkable and famous people, including the late Adam Faith, the boxer Prince Naseem Hamed, and a host of show-business celebrities - the theatre was never really far away.
Lord Ahmed
I have recently dealt with the high profile case of Lord Ahmed. I was surprised at how unfair the reporting of his case was by the media. The publics' perception was that he was criminally liable for the death of another. He wasn’t. the Court of Appeal said so and agreed with my submissions. They also found that whilst in the wrong for using his mobile phone, at least afterwards he acted with integrity and put his life at risk to ensure no one else lost theirs, by reason of the drunken driver who had crashed his car which led to the collision with his.
It was an experience dealing with that case and I learned a lot about politics and the press, but we won in the end.
Rough Justice
I appeared in two BBC television Rough Justice programmes, centring on the famous biker case I dealt with in the 1990s, in which an innocent man had been convicted of murder. All we had to work with was our gut feeling - it took four years, but we pulled it off. John Megson, the biker in question, asked me to write the story, and so my writing career, such as it is, began.
I wrote my first book Hell is not for Angels based on the case. We named the killers, and just before the book was released they were arrested and the book therefore banned (otherwise they would not have had a fair trial).
Caught by the writing bug I moved on to anecdotes about my life in the Yorkshire courts, and so Boozers, Ballcocks & Bail was born...
PostscriptI don't get much free time because I am a self-confessed workaholic, but when I do, I like gardening, visiting the theatre and eating out with my mates. I am also involved with several local charities. I was proud to be honoured in the Queen's 2006 Birthday Honours List with an MBE for services to Rotherham and South Yorkshire. I enjoy all kinds of sport, but these days it is more watching than playing, and I am proud to be the president of the Rotherham Town Cricket Club.
My wife and I have a daughter, who has inherited our theatrical genes. She was one of the youngest singers ever to perform in The Phantom of the Opera. While 'resting', she found the same fascination with the law as I had, and is now in charge of our Crown Court department.
I often wonder if she would like to take over one day, but she says that having seen what it's done to me, there must be an easier life to be had somewhere else.