Home Solicitor Quotes

The storyteller gave me a sideways look. “Miss Lea, it doesn’t do to get attached to these secondary characters. It’s not their story. They come, they go, and when they go they’re gone for good. That’s all there is to it.” I slid my pencil into the spiral binding of my notebook and walked to the door, but when I got there, I turned back. “Where did she come from, then?” “For goodness’ sake! She was only a governess! She is irrelevant, I tell you.” “She must have had references. A previous job. Or else a letter of application with a home address. Perhaps she came from an agency?” Miss Winter closed her eyes and a long-suffering expression appeared on her face. “Mr. Lomax, the Angelfield family solicitor, will have all the details I’m sure. Not that they’ll do you any good. It’s my story. I should know. His office is in Market Street, Banbury. I will instruct him to answer any inquiries you choose to make.” I wrote to Mr. Lomax that night.

One year later the society claimed victory in another case which again did not fit within the parameters of the syndrome, nor did the court find on the issue. Fiona Reay, a 33 year old care assistant, accused her father of systematic sexual abuse during her childhood. The facts of her childhood were not in dispute: she had run away from home on a number of occasions and there was evidence that she had never been enrolled in secondary school. Her father said it was because she was ‘young and stupid’. He had physically assaulted Fiona on a number of occasions, one of which occurred when she was sixteen. The police had been called to the house by her boyfriend; after he had dropped her home, he heard her screaming as her father beat her with a dog chain. As before there was no evidence of repression of memory in this case. Fiona Reay had been telling the same story to different health professionals for years. Her medical records document her consistent reference to family problems from the age of 14. She finally made a clear statement in 1982 when she asked a gynaecologist if her need for a hysterectomy could be related to the fact that she had been sexually abused by her father. Five years later she was admitted to psychiatric hospital stating that one of the precipitant factors causing her breakdown had been an unexpected visit from her father. She found him stroking her daughter. There had been no therapy, no regression and no hypnosis prior to the allegations being made public. The jury took 27 minutes to find Fiona Reay’s father not guilty of rape and indecent assault. As before, the court did not hear evidence from expert witnesses stating that Fiona was suffering from false memory syndrome. The only suggestion of this was by the defence counsel, Toby Hed­worth. In his closing remarks he referred to the ‘worrying phenomenon of people coming to believe in phantom memories’. The next case which was claimed as a triumph for false memory was heard in March 1995. A father was aquitted of raping his daughter. The claims of the BFMS followed the familiar pattern of not fitting within the parameters of false memory at all. The daughter made the allegations to staff members whom she had befriended during her stay in psychiatric hospital. As before there was no evidence of memory repression or recovery during therapy and again the case failed due to lack of corrobo­rating evidence. Yet the society picked up on the defence solicitor’s statements that the daughter was a prone to ‘fantasise’ about sexual matters and had been sexually promiscuous with other patients in the hospital. ~ Trouble and Strife, Issues 37-43

But his message today was different. The Major wasn’t long off the phone and the decision he’d reported came as no surprise to George, though it hadn’t stopped him beating his steering wheel in frustration as he queued to come off the M25 to head towards central London. He’d calmed down enough to agree to meet with Henry Roberts. There was some paperwork for him and his solicitor to sign that needed witnessing by a representative from the Home Office. George Elms would be acting as that representative

she wants to give her Rusheen, she wants to go out home just for the day and go back to the same solicitor that she has already been to and make a new will giving her Rusheen. “There’s no hurry,” Eleanora says. “But you love it, don’t you?” “Yes, I love it.” “Then it’s decided . . . go downstairs to the matron and tell her we’re going out for the day. . . ” Eleanora looks rapidly and frantically about