Unwanted day in court for legal pair

FOR a glittering couple with enviable reputations in the legal profession, yesterday must have been a difficult experience for James Allen QC and his wife Melanie Williamson.

Married for over 14 years, the deputy High Court judge and assistant deputy coroner are far more used to appearing on the other side of the courtroom, rather than having their own domestic affairs meticulously examined in a public hearing.

Allen is on trial at Bradford Magistrates Court, accused of assaulting his wife.

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The couple faced uncomfortable hours yesterday being grilled over their accounts of precisely what happened on Saturday, February 20, last year when Allen admitted how “irritable” he was over the unexpected appearance of the couple’s cleaner, Amanda Clarke, after a long day spent driving home from a holiday in Scotland.

Mrs Allen, 44, who goes by the professional name Melanie Williamson, said the situation was similar to one years before when they separated after he accused of her of putting her mother before him – even though she had suffered a major stroke.

Mrs Allen, who like her husband wore her wedding ring as she gave evidence, said she had argued with her husband on the day of the alleged assault because he had been “unreasonable” in objecting to her talking to Ms Clarke whose mother was suffering from cancer.

She said he was upset because he had to spend time upstairs in his study while the domestic help visited.

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She told the court: “He wasn’t best pleased, he said, having been upstairs for such a long time.”

Mrs Allen said her husband was probably annoyed when he heard her and Amanda “giggling” to relieve tension.

She said: “He hadn’t had any food all day. He said he was past eating.”

She added: “He said, in effect, why was I spending so much time with Amanda?

“I said her mum was poorly, she wanted to offload.

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“He said: ‘She’s hardly a friend of yours.’ I said that was ‘so unreasonable, she has been with us a while’.

“She hasn’t any friends at all as far as I was aware.

“He said it was just unacceptable for me to spend so much time (with her). I just said, that’s so unreasonable.”

Mrs Allen continued: “He said it was like going back four or five years previously.

“What had happened four or five years previously (was) we had a separation on the basis that I was putting my mum and everybody else in front of him and really a wife should put her husband first.

“On that basis he decided he was going to leave.”

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When asked if her mother was ill, she said: “My mum was terribly unwell. My mum had had a major stroke.”

But she backed up her husband’s version of events as she told the court she had inflicted her injuries upon herself.

She told the court she had acted “pathetically” when her husband tried to leave after their argument.

“I was furious. I was so cross that he could even contemplate leaving. It went from panic to total and utter anger that he was actually doing this,” she said.

She claimed she hit herself in the face three times with clenched fists out of sheer frustration in the hope her husband would not leave and instead give her a hug.

The hearing continues.

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