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High-profile New Zealand lawyer Bob Moodie has been named by a columnist in the Times newspaper in London as winner of the world "award for bizarre conduct by a lawyer in 2006".
"Facing contempt proceedings in the High Court in Wellington, he appeared in women's clothes, asked the judge to call him 'Ms Alice' and explained that this was because he wanted to draw attention to the old-boy network within the New Zealand judiciary," said Times columnist David Pannick, QC.
Dr Moodie, 68, was once secretary of the Police Association and wore kaftans at the time, during the 1970s, was a goat breeder, mayor of Manawatu, and a high-profile advocate for former Wanganui police commander Alec Waugh, winning him a $1 million payout after he lost his job in an alleged fraud case.
A practising barrister in London's Temple Law Courts, Mr Pannick also detailed "particularly hot competition" in 2006 for the prize for a judge.
William Carter, of the Albany City Court in New York, was a strong contender after being censured for removing his judicial robe, walking up to a defendant and asking: "You want a piece of me?"
Judge Donald Thompson was convicted by a jury in Oklahoma on four counts of indecent exposure by surreptitiously using a penis pump in Creek County Court while sitting as a judge hearing trials in 2002 and 2003.
Mr Pannick awarded this judge a consolation prize for least contentious statement by a defendant in a criminal trial this year: "In 20-20 hindsight, I should have thrown it away."
The award for judge of the year went to Judge Florentino Floro Jr, whom the Philippines Supreme Court sacked for: Regularly opening proceedings with the statement that he was "a Bar topnotcher" who passed the 1983 Bar examinations "with an average score of 87.55 per cent"; for changing from blue court robes to black each Friday "to recharge his psychic powers" as "the No5 psychic in the country"; and for claiming to have the assistance of three invisible dwarf friends named Luis, Armand and Angel, who assisted him in court.
Judicial email of the year was sent by the UK immigration judge Mohammed Ilyas Khan to his lover, Roselane Driza, a Brazilian cleaner, telling her she was "real chilli-hot stuff".
She was imprisoned for 33 months for blackmailing a female immigration judge, Judge J, by threatening to send to the Lord Chancellor videos of Judge J having sex with Judge Khan, and another three months' imprisonment for theft of videos.
Witness of the year was Gail Sheridan giving evidence for her husband, Tommy, in his successful libel action against the News of the World for alleging that he had taken part in orgies.
Mrs Sheridan told the jury that her husband was so "boring' that his only interest on weekend evenings was to search through dictionaries to find long words to boost his scores at Scrabble.
The Iraqi High Tribunal's sentencing of Saddam Hussein to death for crimes against humanity was rated the foreign trial of the year, with a note that the 10-month trial was disrupted by the murder of three defence lawyers, the departure of two chief judges, boycotts by the defence team and shouting matches in court.
The winner in the category for hopeless lawsuit of the year was German lawyer Jens Lorek, who wants to hear from people who believe they were abducted by aliens so that he can bring, on their behalf, compensation claims against the state.
"The trouble is," he complained, "people are afraid of making fools of themselves in court."
Mr Pannick said there would be many people doing precisely that in 2007.
- NZPA
