Veteran solicitor retires

Ian Campbell has hung up his business suit and swapped it for open necked shirts or cricket whites.
When he first appeared before the bench at Newbury Magistrates’ Court as a newly qualified solicitor at Charles Hoile in 1975,
a certain Margaret Thatcher had just wrested the Conservative Party leadership from Edward Heath and the Vietnam War was drawing to a close.
Since then, Mr Campbell has appeared in around 130 magistrates’ courts up and down the country and represented thousands of defendants.
He said: “I can still remember my first case - a shoplifting trial, which ended in acquittal.”
During his last day in court last Thursday, prosecutor Helen Waite made a tongue-in-cheek application to the bench to “disregard his retirement and require him to continue to appear before you each week.”
Mrs Waite said: “Ian is well liked and respected by myself and all my colleagues. He’s a man of professionalism and integrity and a real gentleman. I’ve never known anyone to have a bad word to say about him.”
Sixty-two-year-old Mr Campbell, who has two children and four grandchildren and lives with his wife, Erica, in Newbury, will no longer be attending his office or representing clients in court but will continue to advise clients at the police station - the aspect of his job he said he had most enjoyed.
He added: “I’ve hugely enjoyed my career and I’ve always been pleased to be firmly based at Newbury Magistrates’ Court and Newbury Police Station, representing and advising the people of West Berkshire.”
He said he and Mrs Campbell are currently “part way through a walk from John O’Groats to Lands End” and added: “We’ve not taken the most direct route and have so far covered just 414 miles of the total 1,170 in journeying southwards to the Scottish border. We still have a long way to go.”
One thing he won’t miss is the suit.
Mr Campbell said: “You can turn up in cricket whites at the police station. I won’t need it any more.”