Eminent QC David Cocks fought against providing for his love child.
By Keith Dovkants. 7 November 2007. Evening Standard.
David Cocks was among the most brilliant lawyers of his generation. His skill at the bar made him a multimillionaire, with a country estate and a fine house in London. He was the toast of his profession, yet, in one area of his private life, Cocks behaved like the cad in a Victorian melodrama. Having seduced a young woman who became his pupil, he spurned her and the son she bore him.
Cocks fought battle after battle against maintenance orders, denying his own child and causing the distress for the woman who had loved him. Her account, supported by the evidence of one of Cock’s oldest friends, an eminent lawyer, former MP and Solicitor General, Sir Derek Spencer often seems inexplicable.
It was a late winter's day when she exchanged glances with Cocks across a room in the Royal Courts of Justice. She was in her early 20s, a bright and attractive woman who had struggled against family hardship to reach the beginning of a career at the Bar. He was 14 years older, already a success, wealthy and, everyone agreed, destined for great things. That fleeting look was to lead to a love affair, but when Felicity told Cocks she was pregnant everything changed: “He said if I didn't have an abortion I was on my own.” And so it proved. As David Cocks QC rose to the heights of his profession, he turned on his child and its mother with the cruelty that seems scarcely credible. Cocks first denied his son, then spurned him and fought against maintenance orders. As the child was born, into a single parent's home with one-bedroom, and he threw a champagne party at his St John's Wood house for his legal friends to celebrate another good year at the Bar. Felicity recalls to this now with a calm detachment.
Felicity was orphaned as a child and brought up by her grandfather, Admiral Leonardo Blackler but he died when she was 16. She was forced to fend for herself. Despite having no family or parental home, she secured a place at prestigious University College. “I had to fund my own way through college. I had this burning ambition to be a lawyer and nothing was going to stop me. When I was called to the Bar, I felt I was on my way,” she says. She was a pupil in chambers at Pump Court and was with her Pupil Master Michael Hymes, future Queens Counsel and Common Sergeant of the Old Bailey, that day at the High Court when she caught Cocks’ eye. He was this Olympian figure, tall, good-looking and very successful. When he invited me out to lunch I was really flattered. He invited me to lunch every single day during the case and said: “Come and be my pupil. You'll make a lot of money and have a brilliant career.”
Felicity moves to his Chambers at 5 King's Bench Walk, the Attorney General Sir Michael Havers, chambers. “One night David turned up at my flat in Doughty Street with a bottle of champagne. He told me he loved me. I couldn't believe anyone so wonderful could care about me. I was absolutely amazed. When he kissed me the stars exploded. I was in love, really in love." When Cocks told her he was married, with three children, it made no difference. They holidayed together in Wales, spent days working side by side and evenings together.
As the year ended, she learnt she was pregnant. Cocks urged her to have an abortion. “He said if I did we could carry on as we were. I was desperate. This was a child conceived in love, I couldn't destroy it. He said if I insisted on having a baby I would have to leave his chambers, he couldn't risk his career. At one point he rang me at 6 a.m. and shouted down the phone: “You have wrecked my life: if I see you again are wrecked yours!" She was not without friends. The poet Robert Graves, whom she knew through a family link, invited her to his home on Majorca. He became godfather to her son and provided practical and emotional support. So did Cocks’ close friends Bill Marshall Q C a future Attorney General of Hong Kong , and Derek Spencer, later Sir Derek Spencer QC, the Conservative MP and Solicitor General. Marshall and Spencer were appalled by their friend’s treatment of his ex-mistress. The two men tried to persuade Cocks to set up a trust fund for the child, but Cocks flatly refused. Cocks later denied paternity which astonished sir Dereck as Cocks had confessed to Sir Dereck already over a glass of whisky in Sir Derek's home "I have made my pupil pregnant." Sir Derek was astonished at his attitude and urged Felicity who was still in love with Cocks and having to fend for herself in utterly impoverished circumstance in a one room flat with no heating, that despite her loyalty to her erthwart lover and pupil master , that for the child's sake, paternity must be proved in court.
As Felicity's pregnancy progressed and she was unable to work, she was in financial difficulty. Spencer and Marshall stepped in and gave her £200 each. When her child was born she named him David and took him to her flat in Albany Street, NW1. At 18 months old, David contracted pneumonia. In one of the many court battle is over maintenance for David, Sir Derek gave a statement. In it, he recalled learning that the boy was dangerously ill and taking the news to Cocks. “The conversation took place in our room in Chambers and I remember it vividly,” Sir Derek said. “He said words to the effect that he wasn't interested, but it was no concern of his: that he was never again see the child will have anything to do with it.” Young David survived and, with his mother working as a barrister, they moved to a two-bedroom flat in Camden, a former council property which is still their home. She worked to support them and Cocks contributed to the boy's education, grudgingly seemed. Cocks became one of the most sought after barristers in London, on one case he earned £100,000, plus £550 a day refresher fees.
Cocks acquired 173 acre estate in Devon, yet fought against idea of providing for his son. When David was the baby and magistrate ordered Cocks to pay £25 a week maintenance.“ he said would give it as a lump sum on the 360 day of the year,” Felicity recalled “ Luckily the court said the child could not eat in arrears, and he was ordered to pay the money monthly.” When it came, it was not £25, but £16.24 a week. Cocks deducted tax. Later she was awarded higher sums and, eventually, £10,000 a year. But she says, money was never the most important issue. The rejection by David's father hurt him deeply, she says. In one of the many legal fight, though Cocks had refused to see his son or send Christmas or birthday cards or presents , Cocks tried to have their son made a ward of court because he said he was opposed to private education and Felicity was sending David to a fee-paying school, Hill House in Knightsbridge. He lost the case." I have never brought these court actions,” he said.” He has always instigated them and I have being forced to act. He is a powerful figure, with a lot of influence and wealth, and it felt as if he was using that to squash me. David knew what was happening and I was always desperately worried that he was being deeply wounded emotionally. ”Being spurned by his father was the worst,” she said. Though he sends his father a birthday and Christmas card, nothing is received in return. As a child he knew his father was a keen horseman and took to sleeping with a toy horse under his pillow. Then, when he was 13, his father made contact. He pushed a note through the door, addressed to David, telling him he would pick him up to play squash at 8 a.m. that Sunday. Felicity knew Cocks was a champion squash player and she dared to hope that now, at last, he wanted a relationship with his son. He picked the boy up and took him to the squash court.“ He systematically thrashed him. David had never played before.” Felicity says “ it was a massacre. He took delight in beating the boy to the point where you could hardly stand up, but he forced on to go on.” Cocks took David for a squash outing once every nine weeks for a number of months, then the meetings petered out, as David put it. Soon after this, there were more attempts to stop maintenance payments. After yet another failure by Cocks in the courts, Felicity took David to Austria for a holiday. While they were away, Cocks applied to his legal costs-which were estimated at £35,000-to be paid by her, despite the fact he had lost a case. When the news reached Felicity in Austria she collapsed. She was later diagnosed with a thrombosis that travelled to the brain and he was airlifted back to Britain, dangerously ill. She recovered, but her health prevented him from returning to work as a barrister. She received incapacity benefit but now hopes to return to the Bar. “I had built a career but it seemed every move I made was dogged by these legal battles over money,” she said. “It was just more change to him-nickels and dimes.
One day an envelope arrived hand put by Cocks through the door inviting David to an 8 am one hour access with his father before and excluding breakfast.
Felicity was nervous aware of Cocks track record as a father to his youngest and hitherto totally excluded youngest and most vulnerable child. She knew Cocks was a champion squash player and she dared to hope that now, at last, he wanted a relationship with his son. He picked the boy up and took him to the squash court.“ He systematically thrashed him. David had never played before.” Felicity says “ it was a massacre. He took delight in beating the boy to the point where you could hardly stand up, but he forced on to go on.”
Cocks henceforth took David for a squash outing once every nine weeks for a number of months, and despite the boy telling his father he loathed squash and would love to do something else less intimidating than such a sport, such as walk or ride or fly a kite, these were not accorded and the meetings petered out, as David put it. David desperately wanted his fathers affection respect and love but his father never even gave him a hug or even a hand shake. Soon after this, there were more attempts to stop maintenance payments. After yet another failure by Cocks in the courts, Felicity took David to Austria for a holiday. While they were away, Cocks applied to his legal costs-which were estimated at £35,000-to be paid by her, despite the fact he had lost a case. When the news reached Felicity in Austria she collapsed. She was later diagnosed with a thrombosis that travelled to the brain and he was airlifted back to Britain, dangerously ill. She recovered, but her health prevented him from returning to work as a barrister. She received incapacity benefit but now hopes to return to the Bar. “I had built a career but it seemed every move I made was dogged by these legal battles over money,” she said. “It was just more change to him-nickels and dimes. Once, an envelope arrived on David's birthday with his father's handwriting on it. He was very excited and opened it. It was a letter saying he wanted to decrease maintenance.” Then, just before last Christmas Cocks served a summons, just as Felicity and her son were preparing for the festivities, “It was a devastating blow,” she says. “David had been ill and was just getting better. We were looking forward to Christmas, then the summons arrived. That year his father was named in the House of Commons as sixth highest paid prosecuting barrister in England. I was struggling to make ends meet and the summons was seeking to stop the maintenance payments.” the case was finally adjudicated at Wells Street magistrates Court last week. The details cannot be reported the legal reasons but Cocks agreed to pay £100,000 as a final settlement. He later described the sum as “generous.”“ I hardly find it generous for a man to abandon his son and then to fight tooth and nail all through his life against supporting him,” Felicity said. “ But the money wasn't the most important part of the agreement. It was also agreed that he would make contact with David and have a relationship with him. That was what I wanted more than anything, but him to be a father to his son.”
So far no meeting has been arranged.
