Ralph Haeems; criminal solicitor with a colourful cast of clients
Hyfler/Rosner
Leading criminal solicitor with a colourful cast of clients
James Morton
Tuesday April 19, 2005
Guardian
There is hardly a south London criminal worthy of the name
who has not beaten a path to the Peckham Rye offices of
solicitor Ralph Haeems, who has died aged 64, following
heart surgery. Since the 1960s, the Indian-born Haeems was
the leading solicitor undertaking criminal work in London.
His client list included the Kray twins; George Ince, who
was acquitted of the Essex barn murder; the serial killer
Dennis Nilsen; the transvestite bank robber David Martin,
who escaped from the cells at Marlborough Street court;
Russell Bishop, who was acquitted in 1987 of the murder of
two nine-year-old girls; and, more recently, the celebrity
criminal Dave Courtney, as well as a number of police
officers.
Despite this prominence, however, Haeems always remained
outside the inner circle of London defence lawyers. He was
loved by his clients but, perhaps envious of his undoubted
success, in his early years at least, he was rarely welcomed
by his fellow lawyers. Nor did he really wish to be. With a
slight stammer, he never regarded himself as a great
advocate, attributing his success to making himself
available, hard work and being a good tactician. Much of his
work came from recommendations by clients.
Haeems was born in Bombay (now Mumbai), where his family was
involved in running schools. In the 1950s, many of his
relations went to Israel and the United States, but he
decided on England because of his father's pro-British
sentiments. Equipped with a BSc in engineering from Bombay
University, he came to London to take an MA in chemistry.
Because of the exchange control laws, he arrived with only
Ł4, with which he bought whisky and cigarettes; he intended
to sell the scotch at a profit, but was embarrassed and gave
it away. He smoked the cigarettes, thus beginning a 20-year
habit.
Haeems lodged initially at a hostel in Mansell Street,
Whitechapel, east London, where one of the trustees was
Emmanuel "Manny" Fryde, a qualified solicitor then working
as a clerk in the criminal practice of Sampson and Co, near
the Old Bailey. Haeems was offered a job filing and
collecting Fryde's winnings from local betting shops.
Dissatisfied with this role, he threatened to go back to
engineering until Fryde gave him the defence of a man
charged with murder. The client was acquitted, and Haeems
signed articles in 1963.
In those days, a managing clerk could effectively run a
legal practice, and Fryde provided Haeems with a rough
apprenticeship, paying him poorly. On one occasion, after
attending an identification parade in Seaford, east Sussex,
which finished after the last train had left, Haeems
telephoned Fryde for approval to stay overnight in a
boarding house. Fryde was interested only in knowing whether
the client had been picked out, and Haeems spent the night
on the platform.
It was, however, a good training. Fryde had long acted for
some of London's major criminals, and his clients included
the Nash family and the Kray twins. In 1964, Haeems was
involved in the Krays' defence against allegations of
blackmail in the Hideaway Club case, of which they were
acquitted. In 1969, although Fryde was still nominally in
charge, it was Haeems who prepared the twins' defence
against the murder charges of Jack McVitie and George
Cornell.
With such a heavy volume of work, Haeems did not qualify as
a solicitor until 1972. He remained with the firm for four
years after Fryde's retirement in 1973, before setting up
his own practice and purchasing premises at 9 Blenheim
Grove, Peckham Rye. A superstitious man, who favoured the
number 9, he believed that paying rent was "dead money".
Unlike many solicitors who undertake criminal cases, Haeems
distanced himself and his staff from his clients. He would
never see them at his home, preferring to reopen his office
out of hours. He was something of a disciplinarian,
enforcing a dress code and banning long hair, but he did not
expect his staff to undertake anything he would not do
himself. He commanded affection and loyalty: two of his
managing clerks remained with him until well into their 80s.
Despite acting for some of London's most notorious
criminals, Haeems only once fell foul of a client. After
refusing to act for a man whose instructions he discovered
were lies, he was sent a revolver. It emerged that the gun
had come from the disgruntled client, who had told the
police that Haeems was going to smuggle it into prison.
Haeems was a private, family man who, for a time, bred
parrots. He is survived by his wife Angela, whom he married
in 1967, two daughters, both qualified solicitors, and his
son, a barrister.
· Ralph Sam Haeems, lawyer, born November 9 1940; died March
31 2005