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Why Murderers Were the Favorite Clients of Rumpole’s Creator
The surprising reason why John Mortimer liked representing killers better than couples getting divorced
The actress Emily Mortimer once wrote a charming essay about her doting father, John, the novelist who created Rumpole of the Bailey, and why he liked defending murderers better than people who were divorcing. She said in part:
“I was brought up by a man who knew a lot of murderers and who considered many of them to be decent people. It is an education I am proud of. He always said that, in his days as a defense barrister, murderers were his favorite clients. This was partly because, unlike divorcing couples who were always ringing him up in the middle of the night and accusing each other of taking the toaster, murder suspects found it more difficult to get to a telephone. Also, he said, they had often got rid of the one person on earth who was really making their life hell, and a kind of peace had descended over them.”
Emily Mortimer in the October 2009 issue of Tatler, an article not online.
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