When Sir Derek Spencer Solicitor General told David Cocks Q C his son as a baby was struggling on a life support machine with every breath agony he said “I couldnt care less if he dies I will never see him he is nothing to me”
HE CARRIED ON DRINKING HIS CHAMPAGNE AND HIS SON WAS NEAR DEATH ON A LIFE SUPPORT MACHINE THEN WENT OF TO HIS COUNTRY ESTATE FOR THE WEEK END TO HUNT
The mother he totally rejected because she would not abort his child and gave her not a penny for herself and would not help the child his son when as a baby he was on a life support machine.When Sir Derek Spencer his room mate and the solicitor general told him his son as a baby was struggling on a life support machine with every breath agony he said “I couldnt care less if he dies I will never see him he is nothing to me”As a silk of the highest repute, and the sixth highest earning barrister in the land, he could afford to indulge himself at Christmas with his family.Two hundred miles away from his home in Devon, in a dingy district of the London borough of Camden, Christmas was a much humbler affair for Felicity and their son. They shared a small turkey in their two-bedroom, first-floor flat. There were few presents - Felicity cannot afford them. Instead, she spent the festive season contemplating the fat legal letter that landed on her doormat last week from Mr Cocks's solicitors. In it, she learned that the eminent QC was seeking an end to the payment of maintenance for the couple's love child. At £10,000 a year, it is a drop in the ocean of his estimated £800,000 annual salary, but crucial to his son's standard of living. A rather Scrooge-like gesture at this time of year, certainly - but few who know David Cocks Q C in either a professional or a private capacity are surprised. For many years, they have spoken of his abiding hatred for the woman who was once his pupil barrister and his mistress, and his determination to have nothing to do with her or their son she bore him. Theirs is a bitter and fraught history, one that has scandalised the upper echelons of the legal profession and been played out for in some of the highest courts in the land as he tried to deny paternity despite his year long passionate affair with his pupil ,the blood test which prove positive against his extrodinary denial and his frank and secret confession to Sir Derek Spencer Q C Solicitor General,David Cocks long time Chambers room mate and Fellow Barrister in the Attorney Generals Chambers where Felicity had trained as a barristers after an invitation by David Cocks Q C for her to leave the pupilage of Michael Hymn. It is also a deeply poignant tale, one that has left huge emotional scars on mother and son. David is a clever young man and has struggled to cope with his father's cruel rejection. His refuge, over the years, has been academia - he is studying to be an archaeologist at a London university. It is a refuge that is threatened by his father's intransigence because the regular payments contributed to the cost of his education. It is for this reason that Felicity has decided to break her silence of years. "David has been devastated over the years by his father's cruelty - we both have," she says. "I have tried hard to give our son the best life I could, but it has been a struggle. David has taken refuge in his books, but now his father even wants to take that away." Today, it is clear that fighting for recognition of her son has taken its toll. Gone are the vibrant tumbling locks and curvaceous figure that made her a head-turner among the rarefied surroundings of the Inns of Court. Back then, she was a barrister of great promise. Orphaned as a child, Felicity had been raised by her admiral grandfather. But, having been left with no financial means after his death when she was 16, she had funded herself through law school by taking various jobs. Life had been kinder to David Cocks, now 71. Rugby and Oxford-educated, he was a rising star of the legal profession when his path crossed that of Felicity many years his junior. A brilliant criminal barrister, he would go on to become chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, and his magisterial figure and thick black hair earned him the nickname "the Prince of Darkness". Unfortunately, he was also married with three children when, after spotting Felicity in court, he asked her out for lunch. "I was flattered," Felicity recalls. "He was such an impressive figure. I could not believe he was interested in me." Within days, David had asked her to leave her chambers and become his pupil barrister. "He promised me a dazzling career. My pupil master was furious - it wasn't done to poach. He said to me: 'Felicity, that man is no gentleman.' I wish I'd heeded his warning." But it was too late: Felicity was smitten. 'Here was one of the most impressive barristers of his generation reaching his hand to me. I was flattered and hopelessly na've." The friendship quickly became an affair, sealed when the barrister turned up at her apartment late one night with a bottle of champagne. "He seduced me and the following morning he told me he loved me. I thought I had met my prince; I had no idea he was married." The affair quickly became intense. There were dinners, weekends away, even a holiday - a week in Wales during the height of summer. Blissfully ignorant of his marital status, Felicity only discovered the truth ahead of a weekend invitation to stay at her lover's parental home. "He casually told me his wife and children would also be there. I was bewildered, devastated. He said he hadn't told me before because he knew I would never have succumbed to his affections." After a "wretched" weekend, in which Felicity's presence was explained as her just being a pupil barrister he was mentoring, she returned to London vowing to end the affair. "But he was so persuasive and I was so very in love with him. He said he wanted to build a new life with me in America and, of course, I believed him. I thought he just needed time." But events were soon brought to a head. Within nine months of their affair starting, Felicity discovered she was pregnant - and any dreams of a long-term future with her lover were shattered. "He told me I could stay in chambers if I had an abortion, or I could have the baby and leave. I was devastated," she recalls. "I wrote him a letter in which I said I would not, could not, deprive our child of the human right to be born and anyway it was moral or a christian approach to an innocent life. His response was to telephone me at 6am, shouting: 'You have wrecked my life and I am going to wreck yours.' I was trembling from the force of his anger." Felicity left chambers within days, finding work with a much smaller, less lucrative chambers in order to make ends meet. While her former lover lived in grand style in a large house in St John's Wood, North-West London, her pregnancy was spent in the unheated, one-room flat she had rented at the start of her pupillage. Her only respite came in the form of a holiday towards the end of her pregnancy at the Spanish home of her godfather, the poet Robert Graves. The fare was paid by Cocks's then chambers' room mate Sir Derek Spencer, who went on to become Solicitor General, and who had taken pity on Felicity. "I know he discussed with Cocks the possibility of setting up a trust fund, but he wasn't interested. Derek was appalled by his callous attitude," says Felicity. Effectively abandoned, in July she gave birth to her son in a London hospital while, less than a mile away, Cocks threw a summer champagne party for his chambers in his large St Johns Wood Town House. Three weeks later, Felicity had no option but to return to work. Within days, she received the phone call she'd been praying for. "David rang and asked if we could meet. I was full of hope that he had seen the error of his ways." Ironically, given Felicity's straitened circumstances, Cocks's choice of venue was the Ritz. But the meeting was not what she had hoped for. "He told me that if he bumped into me he would be friendly, but he would have nothing to do with the child and would not be giving us money. We were eating cucumber sandwiches while I could barely afford the bus fare home." There was worse to come. During a freezing winter, living in a flat with no heating, baby David was struck down with pneumonia, his life endangered. "Later, I found out that when Sir Derek Spencer Q C had told Cocks about it, he had replied that he couldn't care less, that it was nothing to do with him.He would never see his son and noone could make him" Desperate to gain some financial provision for her son, in Felicity launched paternity proceedings, bitterly contested by Cocks, who despite positive blood tests demanded by Felicity and the secret confession Cocksmade to Sir Derek Spencer Q C Solicitor general his long time chambers room mate,David Cocks Q C sinking to new depths of cruelty denied he was the baby's father. The presiding magistrate, Ronald Knox-Mawer, said he had "no hesitation" in finding the case proven, and ordered Cocks to pay £25 a week maintenance.David Cocks immediately decided to pay just £16.24p a week desite having a boat a horse a country estate and a large luxury town house,parents who he weekended with every weekend in their luxury home. "David applied to pay it in a lump sum on the 365th day of each year. I felt that was sheer spite. Luckily, the judge said a child could not eat in arrears and refused him." For ten years, his son received just £16.24 a week from Cocks, despite his flourishing career. "I remember on one occasion I was pushing the pram down the street to take the baby to the childminder before starting work," she says. "David drove by in his large Volvo and stuck his fingers up at me. I was floored by his contempt for me." The irony of their bitter estrangement was compounded when Felicity learned that, in, Cocks's wife, Patricia, had divorced him, naming in the petition Sarah Child, the wife of David's best friend Robert Wood.Later in his constant attempt to blacken Felicity's name he declared the divorce to have been her fault(during a maintence hearing when he tried to reduce the maintenance and the Wardship hearing when eh,despite having never seen his son except to snub him if he accidentaly on aout 3 occasions interacted with mother and child by chance,when he snorted and slammed past in hatred and cruelty to his devestated child and not even knowing his sons birthday when the Judge asked it to test his caring of his son though he had refused to see or speak to the mother or child for 12 years and the Divorce petition clearly stated the grounds for divorce was he adultery with the co cited Sarah Child,Patricia Cocks best friend,and David Cocks best friend(Robert Wood's)wife,causing devestation to bothe families.In court Sir Nicholas Wilson Q C ,now a member of the Supreme coust and a very honourable man who had represented Felicity in court during many of the cruel judical attacks on the mother and child trying to exhaust and malign mother and chld and to exhaust them through what Joanna Dodson Q C submitted to the High Court when David Cocks tried to appeal(and lost)maintenance in the affiliation Magistrates Court "till the end of full time education"trying to worm out of the tiny responsibility which was managed to squeeze out of the father (who refused even to see his son to love his son to read to his son to play games with his child to baby sit even one evening a year or even to smile at his son or stop his chums putting his son down as they did to please the father) that “The father has used his advantageous financial position to engage in litigation which is wholly misguided,which may have had as its pupose the intimidation of the mother.” The High Court Judge Butler Sloss hearing the appeal decided to award indemnity costs-the highest level possible-against poor old David! This was typical of of the cruelty and the spiteful cunning and bullying with which David Cocks used to "intimidate the mother"to keep the power in his ball court. Cocks and Sarah married two years later and moved to a country estate near Tiverton, Devon, with Sarah's two children. Meanwhile, Felicity was working night and day to make ends meet as a barrister. Home was the two-bedroom former council flat where she and David still live, and the mortgage, combined with childcare, took everything she had. Felicity applied to the court for the maintenance to be increased. Cocks offered £2,335 a year. After a hearing and appeal, this sum was raised to £10,000 a year and David was able to attend private school. "Almost immediately, Cocks launched wardship proceedings, arguing David - whom he'd never seen - should be made a ward of court because he was opposed to private education. "It was ludicrous - his other children had been privately educated. The proceedings were dismissed as a misuse of jurisdiction, but although I was relieved, it was hard to deal with the full force of his anger," says Felicity. "The judge said that he had no doubt the boy was going to grow up emotionally maimed if this rejection by his father went on." Certainly, Felicity saw the devastation at first hand: for years, David had slept with a model horse under his pillow, a link, he believed, to his father, who is a fine horseman. "After the proceedings, I found he had smashed the horse to pieces," says Felicity, revealing the mental turmoil her son must have felt. Given his lengthy opposition to his son, it seems astonishing Cocks would ever show any interest in him. But, when David was around 14 -and for reasons that remain a mystery - overtures were made. One morning, a note arrived inviting David to play squash with his father. "David was excited, but also terribly scared. He had never even seen this man and he was terrified of his reputation." Father and son came face to face for the first time when David junior climbed into his father's car at the crack of dawn "not to interefere with my family day,to drive to a sports centre,for barely an hour ,the first time even without a drink of any kind.Cocks was an experienced and an accomplished squash player,much taller and physically more powerful than the slim boy,ofcourse Cocks thrashed the teenager once even accidently smashing the racket into his sons ankle causing agony and embarresment to his son whose ankle the father didnt even examine or let the boy sit down. "It was typical of him, that he had to win," says Felicity. A pattern was set. Every third week, Cocks would drive his son to school one morning. Every ninth Sunday, they played squash from the crack of dawn till he was returned before breakfast,which as the boy had a 6 day week getting up at 6 was his only morning chance to lay in and recuperate. Even tough the son begged his father not to play the hated squash which he was terrifed because of ,asking to meet later or to fly a kite or go for a walk David Cocks refused in fact totally ignored,refused to discuss and refused to even hear the mother on anything to do with their sons arrangements of welfare,refusing infact even to read a written request to have better and more child friendly contact.Demanding at the first meeting he offered to make the child wait from midday to tea time for him at the commonweath Institute,with his reports in his hand without his mother but in frount of David cocks solicitors,who needless to say were absolutely defined by anything the father demanded,and with the condition that this was a once only meeting unless the father made a decision on his terrified son that his son behaved EXACTLY as he the father who had attacked his son all his life rejected him shunned him even sought his abortion,demanded.Brave Bully Conduct,unchristian conduct utterly cruel utterly intimidating. Young David desperately wanted more, but any overtures towards further intimacy were rejected. All the son wanted as every son to be loved and cherished as a son should be ,but he was not even given one hundreth of the love and affection that david cocks Q C gave to the children of Robert Wood's children his step children who were brought up to think their ranking was far higher than that of David Cocks natural blood son,the son of his loins the son of his flesh of his blood. In the event, contact lasted only a matter of months before it petered out. It was replaced by yet more court proceedings. "Cocks applied for maintenance proceedings to be moved to the county court, which can drag out cases for ever. He also applied to reduce maintenance," says Felicity. "I felt embattled and exhausted. It seemed that everything he did was to spite me." After yet more lengthy proceedings Cocks's application to reduce maintenance was rejected. Felicity was advised to take her son on holiday to recover - a break that was to prove all too brief a respite. "While I was away, Cocks applied for me to pay his court costs, even though he had lost his case. It was £35,000. I heard the news by phone and collapsed with the shock." In fact, Felicity had a thrombosis which had travelled to her brain. Immobile in an Austrian hospital for ten days, she was airlifted back to Britain, still dangerously ill. "I feel as if he has stolen my life away," she says. "And I feel he has done it out of spite." And what of her son? David is a fiercely intelligent, but intensely shy young man whose continued rejection by his father has taken a huge emotional toll. With yet more court proceedings ahead, there seems little chance of a rapprochement. In the season of goodwill, it seems unlikely that the eminent Mr Cocks QC would have spared his son even the most fleeting of thoughts as he tucked into his Christmas feast. Sir Derek Spencer Hero,Good Father Man Of immense intergity,Defended The child of David Cocks Q C the failed father incapable of including or loving his son and said to sir Derek "I couldnt care less when his baby son was told by Sir Derek his son was on a life support machine and went off to hunt foxes at his huge country house with the children he loved and adored pretending to all that his youngest son was unimportant and fit to be abandoned even when his life was hanging on a thread
When Sir Derek Spencer Solicitor General told David Cocks Q C his son as a baby was struggling on a life support machine with every breath agony he said “I couldnt care less if he dies I will never see him he is nothing to me”
HE CARRIED ON DRINKING HIS CHAMPAGNE AND HIS SON WAS NEAR DEATH ON A LIFE SUPPORT MACHINE THEN WENT OF TO HIS COUNTRY ESTATE FOR THE WEEK END TO HUNT
The mother he totally rejected because she would not abort his child and gave her not a penny for herself and would not help the child his son when as a baby he was on a life support machine.When Sir Derek Spencer his room mate and the solicitor general told him his son as a baby was struggling on a life support machine with every breath agony he said “I couldnt care less if he dies I will never see him he is nothing to me”






Very Cruel very sad
ReplyDeleteTruth and lies....he tried to get out of his responsibilities to his son who he tried to exclude and disown and dishonour thus in fact dishonouring himself
ReplyDeletethis is sad indeed
ReplyDelete"David Cocks Q C The Man who tried to wanted to force his son to grow up without a father while lavishing his love on his step children, demanding all that this was the norm that even on the day of his birth he elite were gathered to sup champagne and rejection of the child in his lavish home. He continues to feel smug in the rejection of his son and sees rejection and cruelty of exclusion as an appropriate tool to humiliate his son. He tried to deny his son the education he had ,insists his time is better spent hunting inviting his step children to see his sons grandparents while denying his son access, allowing lies to be told about the child and denying him humanity and human rights as set down by The United Nations convention on The Right of The Child."
One hopes the father has now learned love is important to a child and that it is a fathers responsibility to cherish not only his own needs and desires but those of the children of his for they share ancestry and humanity. The man makes the child but the child makes the man.
Cruelty of David Cocks in the history the concealed history of Red Lion Court and 5 Kings Bench Walk
ReplyDeleteFour members have chaired the Criminal Bar Association, David Cocks, Peter Rook, Linda Dobbs and Max Hill.
Meanwhile David Cocks Q C made his pupil pregnant after a year long affair ,he denied paternity after Confessing to Derek "I made my pupil pregnant but I will put a private eye on to her" He kept this lie that he was not the father in court but the magistrates declared "We have not the slightest hesitation in finding that David Cocks IS the father proved. They made him pay £25 a week but he deducted the tax and paid £16.24 pence a week, trying to pay the amount at the end of the year, which the judges said was ridiculous as a child cannot eat in arrears. "He was furious and when his baby son was on a life support machine declared "I couldn't care less if he dies he is nothing to me I will never see him and no one can make me." Certain people toadied to him and helped shun her, but Sir Derek Spencer, Bill Marshall, Linda Dobbs, Michal Warrington all in 5 Kings Bench Walk where he David Cocks made his pupil pregnant treated her with humanity which David Cocks did not."
And I saw this
On August the fifth David Cocks QC and Assistant recorder acting chairman of the Criminal Bar Association and head of the Attorney General’s Chambers was taken to court by his former pupil barrister Felicity and ordered to increase its provisions for the child. Felicity and obtain the original order for maintenance of 25 than a week while she was pregnant although Cocks denied paternity. She was his pupil in chambers that included Derek Spencer, Tory MP and Michael Havers, Attorney General. At the time, the changes divided into opposing camps, though ultimately the male club rules prevailed. William Marshall(later Attorney General of Hong Kong) offered to represent Felicity's interest against Cocks, but was told to desist by senior silk and, when he persisted was given three months notice to quit the chambers. Michael Havers already an MP was approached to help reason with Cocks but declined. At one point Cocks to Felicity that she “didn’t have the guts to commit suicide.” nevertheless she won an order for maintenance in the teacher professional disapproval. Cocks there after had to pay £25 per week, by deducting tax he paid her £16.24 a week. Felicity and then proceeded to struggle broke to bring up their child while at the same time attending to advance her career. Meanwhile David Cocks , who had already divorced his first wife Patricia Cocks, married again to Sarah Child the wife of his best friend Robert Woods, who subsequently suffered a nervous breakdown. After many years Felicity felt that the combination of school fees and the rising cost of living entitled her to claim a more substantial sum of maintenance from Cocks .when she took out a summons against Cocks he offered her £2335 per annum. She refused to settle and was awarded a sum of roughly 4000 pounds per annum and Marlborough magistrates Court where Sarah Cocks, Cocks second wife, happens to sit as a stipendiary magistrate. Felicity and apparently intends to appeal for more for their son. Although David Cocks accept the judgment of the court he will not allow his name to be entered on the birth certificate and has never asked to see the child. ""David Cocks Q C The Man who tried to wanted to force his son to grow up without a father while lavishing his love on his step children, demanding all that this was the norm that even on the day of his birth he elite were gathered to sup champagne and rejection of the child in his lavish home. He continues to feel smug in the rejection of his son and sees rejection and cruelty of exclusion
The two main Heroes are Sir Nicholas Wilson and Sir Derek Spencer who had the courage to stand up for the child against his cruel and powerful father and utterly utterly selfish
I saw this
ReplyDelete"David Cocks Q C His Son His Flesh and Blood Who He Denies Christmas To While Lavishing it On Himself and The Elite Since He Used Injustice as The Tool of Power Against His Powerless Child
David Cocks Q C The Man who tried to wanted to force his son to grow up without a father while lavishing his love on his step children, demanding all that this was the norm that even on the day of his birth he elite were gathered to sup champagne and rejection of the child in his lavish home. He continues to feel smug in the rejection of his son and sees rejection and cruelty of exclusion as an appropriate tool to humiliate his son. He tried to deny his son the education he had ,insists his time is better spent hunting inviting his step children to see his sons grandparents while denying his son access, allowing lies to be told about the child and denying him humanity and human rights as set down by The United Nations convention on The Right of The Child.
Mahatma Gandhi also states, “If we are to teach real peace on this world…we shall have to begin with children; and if they will grow up in their own innocence, we won’t have to struggle; we won’t have to pass fruitless, idle resolutions, but we shall go from love to love and peace to peace, until at last all the corners of the world are covered with that peace and love for which, consciously or unconsciously, the whole world is hungering.”
– Mahatma Gandhi also states,” Whenever I despair, I remember that the way of truth and love has always won. There may be tyrants and murderers, and for a time, they may seem invincible, but in the end, they always fail. Think of it: always.” – Mahatma Gandhi
David Cocks is a man in a muddle he feels he must support the views of his wife that her children must be given all the time the space the place of the world, even above and beyond his own son who is much younger, has never had a garden, or access to gran parents or a fathers love, never a Christmas card or present from him a hug a kiss or access to his love or protection. Even his inheritance the father said he gave his farm away to the mother of his adult step children so that his own son should not even at that stage be given a token of love or recognition, not knowing his son was above such cruel and esthetical wanderings. To act and speak so surely hurts David Cocks more than the son more than his adult step children, who he nurtured and love from the start of their life even when they were being nurtured by Robert Wood their amazing and wonderful and loving father before the dread day when David Cocks visited him in hospital to say he was going to marry his wife and his David's happiness was the most important thing. He had already told Sir Derek Spencer, Solicitor General, when his young baby son was on a life support machine struggling for life with every breath “I couldn’t care less if he dies, he is nothing to me I will never see him and no one can make me." Sir Derek was shocked. The mother of the child was David Cocks young pupil, desperately in love with him, without money or help, thrown out of chambers for refusing an aborting at David Cocks command, no home no parents and no help save Sir Derek, Nicholas Wilson Q C, and William Marshall and Robert Graves who tried to help with a brief sojourn. Rather than facing the cruelty he has done to his child, David Cocks looks for people who goad him to cruelty and snide acts of exclusion. Unable he once said to her to believe in God hence the morality of responsibility of love to a child he has savagely gone his own way with the spirit and morality who sees no wrong on hunting and hounding a fox to death, thrills and spills as he once said. He had an interaction with an African American lady who called him “A baby maker “when he was in the US as a port grad student again an example of his parents love and support and expenditure, but how could he lavish himself and deny love and inclusion to his own son.
How is such cruelty and disregard juxtaposed to self servicing and lavish positive self approval so possible, adorning his step family and disregarding the human rights of his own natural biological son into whom he breathed the gift of life, how does such self sustaining cruelty existed in a moral man or ....
ReplyDeleteDavid Cocks Q C where is thy morality where they pride disintegrate or self sustaining with the cruelty of hunting yet Sir Derek Spencer is a remarkable iconic hero of children, while David Cocks abandoned his before birth and denied him inclusion love and humanity, giving it in abundance instead to his older step daughter even though she had her own father, while his son had none but him, and David Cocks said to Sir Derek "I couldn't care less if he dies" when his baby son was struggling for life on a life support machine. Oh humanity where are you in the soul of lost uncaring cruel father as in David Cocks Q C
I saw this
ReplyDelete"This year's Ebenezer Scrooge Award goes to David Cocks, QC, who has chosen the Christmas season to serve a summons on Felicity seeking to end the £10,000 per year maintenance he pays for their love child, also named David. Their one-year affair – he was her pupil master in chambers – Earlier this year, it emerged in a parliamentary answer that Cocks receives almost £500,000 in fees for his prosecutorial work. At 71 he draws a state and a private pension, and also does private and legal aid work, garnering another £200,000. He has a 200-acre farm in the West Country, which helps offset his tax liability. I have followed this sorry saga from the time when Cocks denied paternity on oath, through his efforts to exhaust the mother with legal ploys, through his attempts to take David out of private school, through criticism of his conduct by the Family Court – and now this. by Christopher Silvester. The Independent .