Dwain Chambers, Britain's best chance of an athletics gold medal at the Beijing Olympic Games, has hired renowned defence lawyer Horace Rumpole for his High Court battle tomorrow.
Chambers hopes to obtain an injunction against a quirky by-law, which is preventing him from taking part in the Games, due to start on August 8th, and has enlisted the help of the famous TV solicitor to win his freedom.
Rumpole, redundant since 1977, is a little rusty but met with Chambers in his chambers yesterday to discuss the facts of the case, which are these:
- a) Chambers broke athletics rules by taking banned substances
b) Chambers served his penalty, just as a murderer would
c) Chambers is being prevented from doing what he wants to do after his penalty has been served, unlike a murderer
Rumpole spoke to journalists after he and Chambers emerged from his chambers, and uttered this gibberish:
"Lord save us, God! O twithee thee
This man will walk by half past three
And lo! Dost China beckon thou
To you, I say, a gold - and now!" *
* Excerpt from Silk Road Druggies, a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1826)
