Alistair Mitchell sent me these details of his life, set out below, on the 5th March 2018. Subsequently Foregate Chambers very sadly announced that one of our own, Counsel Mr Alistair Mitchell, passed away on Sunday 10th February 2019.  He had been battling with cancer for many years and continued his fight to the very end.  All those who knew him personally and/or professionally will appreciate that he was an amazing person, a caring and brilliant advocate with a wonderful sense of humour.  This is a great loss to so many people whose lives Alistair affected and he will always be remembered as a very unique man, ready to support and assist those in most need!

This is a brief outline of my memories from Shene at the start of the 1970’s. It is short because I am preparing to ingest a new drug tomorrow at QEHB (Daratmumab) to continue a fight against Myeloma and I have no idea what, if any, side effects it may herald.

I went to Shene around 1969 from Westfields Primary and was relatively happy there for the first three years. I liked English with Mr Weedon, languages and art but was at a loss to understand most technical subjects.

I remember that the builders completed the gym with one end wall having breezeblocks with no interleaving! It had to be rebuilt.

Making a moderate contribution to the cricket team I was allowed to spin bowl occasionally and fail with the bat inevitably. Rugby brought more success. Securing a place as the hooker - ‘Mad Mitch’ - as I was known, scrummed down in many a game for Shene. Whenever we played our mortal rivals, Reigate GS, fighting would break out even before we left the changing rooms. I have a vague memory of being sent off for ‘foot up’ some 15 seconds after our scrum half kicked off in one game. Years later, I worked with Keir Starmer (now Sir K. Starmer QC ex-DPP) pro-bono on the McLibel case for two anarchists who’d offended McDonalds with a leaflet. He was also involved with the Trafalgar Square Defendants’ Campaign. He was brilliant and incredibly helpful, but there was always something that I disliked about him. I just could not put my finger on it though. Until I found out he went to…Reigate GS!

A supply teacher for Physics called Colonel Lowery arrived. This poor man was a pushover for anarchic Monty Python-sated elements (perhaps 50% of the class). One pupil would run out feigning a fit. Then another pelted after him saying: “It’s alright Sir, I’ll fetch him back!” and so on. Meanwhile the class artillery improvised ballistas with U taps and strong rubber bands, letting fly volleys of multi-coloured chalks at the unfortunate Colonel’s baldhead. Eventually, these regular affrays were broken up once they came to the attention of Ronald Friggins, our feared Deputy Head.

Two factors combined to ensure my education spiraled downward.

Firstly, I’d been brought up in a single-parent family since I was four and craved my absent father’s attention, Everyone else seemed to have a dad who’d take them to football on a Saturday, whilst I made do with the occasional trip to Highbury with my grandfather. My dad was on stage a lot as a poet and I’d see him three or four times a year in that role. I suppose it was his ‘radical’ stance, which attracted me and encouraged emulation on my part, trying to get closer to him. Doing family cases and representing criminals at the Bar, I met so many young people with similar ‘attention-seeking’ issues; alienated from one parent or the other or damaged in the fostering and care system. When my dad was to be called as an expert witness in the Oz Obscenity Trial, I sneaked into the Old Bailey and saw Richard Neville representing himself superbly. Inspired, I joined the ‘Friendz of Oz’ – and got thoroughly corrupted! Interest in schoolwork fell away and I lived for rock gigs and free festivals at Windsor and Stonehenge.

Secondly, as an Arsenal fan, I was up against the form’s numerous Chelsea supporters and suffered a fair amount of bullying. Keeping an eye out for ambushes occupied a lot of the time I should have been studying.

By the fifth year, I was thoroughly disillusioned and performed abysmally in the ‘O’ Levels, going out the night before most of the exams, most notably to the last night of the ‘Barnes Commune’ – an event that left me, shall we say, light-headed during the Geography ‘O’ Level the next morning but not as adrift as one from Fife House -who OD’d on an, ordinarily-prescribed, medicine - and was smuggled out of the gym by a pack of us at the end.

The underground I thirsted after did not emerge at Shene and I headed off to squat in the wilds of Wales until 1977, when I returned to London just in time to pogo up and down to The Clash, move to Brixton and see the emergence of another Shene classmate, Vic Napper, as the singer with the Subway Sect. Truly, it was bright new dawn for the alternative society.

It was only years later, I went back into education at Southbank University after driving trucks and forklifts for 9.5 years, that I developed a taste for learning again. I wish I’d done it earlier and been ‘further ahead’ at the Bar now. It was a real struggle trying to learn again but I’m glad I persevered. I’ve had an enjoyable 21 years at the Bar doing all sorts of common law work in all manner of courts and tribunals. On 23rd January 2018 I received very bad news from my consultant haematologist. I decided I did not have the mental and physical stamina or concentration to continue at the Bar and needed to ‘spend more time with my family’ – Alex and the Mitchell Bros (don’t mess!).

BBC News Sunday 13th March 2020. The poll tax riot of 1990 was one of the most violent UK protests in recent history. More than 500 people were arrested during the trouble in London, which broke out during protest against the unpopular Community Charge. Alistair Mitchell found himself trapped in Whitehall during the disturbances. He was convicted for assault and spent time in two prisons before having his conviction quashed by judicial review years later. He sued the police for wrongful arrest and imprisonment and used the money to study law and become a barrister, this is his story.

‘My wife the girlfriend, and her partner were making a video film about the poll tax movement, and my role was to take stills. I was to climb up a sturdy, steel bus-stop, and ended up about seven feet in the air, and I was able to have a much better view up there, and shot off a series of stills. A lot of what I saw I’d never seen before in my life. I was taken aback. It was difficult to know what to focus on. Eventually I was looking all around for my colleagues. I couldn’t see them at all, they were lost, so I made my way northwards to try and find them. I saw quite a number of people being arrested by the police, but then I saw a young man. I caught a glimpse of him through the legs of four or five policemen who were around him. It was clear that one of the officers around him - I couldn’t tell who - had his thumbs under his chin. I shouted out something like, ‘Don’t do that you could kill him’. Having shouted this I noticed a couple of the officers peel off from the group and make towards me. And one of them said – book this one in for obstruction and assault on me. To my surprise I was charged with actual bodily harm – alleged to be a bite on policeman’s hand. I had no recollection whatsoever the next morning of my teeth having been anywhere near a policemen’s, letting alone having bitten a policeman. I was eventually cleared in mid 1993 – it was a long time to wait for justice.’