Daily Diary

Diary dispute focus: Shambo’s last tango

Posted 1/08/2007 by The Daily Diary

Who says litigation is dead? Certainly no-one at Brick Court Chambers, which found itself at the centre of a very public row over the fate of a very sacred cow.

Shambo the Temple Bull, beloved of worshippers at the Community for the Many Names of God, was famously the subject of a fierce tug-of-law last week after the blessed beast was suspected to have contracted bovine tuberculosis – incurring an immediate death sentence from the Welsh Assembly.

Brick Court human rights specialist David Anderson QC took the metaphorical bull by its increasingly legalistic horns, fighting Shambo’s corner in a judicial review to determine its fate. The elite commercial set even sent out a release celebrating Shambo’s reprieve after the review went the way of the temple.

Shockingly, a swift reversal on appeal meant Shambo’s stay of execution was short-lived, although Brick Court forgot to include The Diary on the distribution list for that memo.

Either way, the set will be pleased to see a return of red-meat litigation and will doubtless beef up its capabilities accordingly.