Tough sentence

For the Recorder of Brighton, Charles Doughty, QC, was well known for his tough punishments.

He was particularly severe on Irishmen and anyone who had served, as he had, in the Brigade of Guards.

It was rumoured, wrongly, that a special judge was kept employed in the Court of Appeal to reduce his sentences.

In one celebrated case, Doughty sentenced a man who had stolen a pork pie to seven years in prison. The ludicrously harsh punishment was then varied on appeal to only two years’ probation.

Doughty’s court was a dark and venerable building in the town hall. The acoustics were not good to the extent that sometimes reporters had to ask the clerk what sentence had been given.

He tended to mumble angrily when telling people what a disgrace they were but they were never in any doubt they were receiving a tongue- lashing. Once an old offender broke into the court at night and stole the Recorder’s wig. He then placed it in an electric kettle and boiled it hard.

The wig emerged clean but a quarter of its original size. The culprit was subsequently caught and jailed, but he reckoned it had been worthwhile!

Doughty`s father, Sir Charles, had previously been Recorder of Brighton and the post was handed down.

Surprisingly, he managed to combine this busy judicial duty with being the Conservative MP for East Surrey between 1951 and 1970.

It’s hard to imagine anyone doing that today but it was common practice then, especially among lawyers, when Parliament conducted much of its business in the evenings.

He was a leading light among the Tories. His wife, Dame Adelaide Doughty, became the national chairman and was later elected president.

I never realised that Doughty had any sense of humour until the day he retired. By this time the court had moved to the slightly less forbidding setting of the current complex in Edward Street, which also meant we could hear him.

He said that day he had received a postcard from a man in Parkhurst prison on the Isle of Wight whom he had sentenced to a long spell inside. It read, “Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.”

At the same occasion, tributes were paid to him by everyone in order of precedence from the barristers right down to the press.

The speeches were over and Doughty was about to reply when a little old lady stood up in the public gallery “I’d like to say a few words on behalf of the supporters club,” she said.

It transpired that she had regularly attended the court and had thoroughly enjoyed the air of theatre Doughty was responsible for there.

But she added; “You get a better class of case at Lewes.” By this she meant that the courts in Lewes were assizes rather than quarter sessions and dealt with murders, some of them notable.

Doughty did not last long after his retirement. He died in 1973 at the age of 70 and old lags all over Sussex breathed a sigh of relief.