When Vivien Symons retired 25 years ago after a lifetime working as a solicitor, she thought she had done with the law. But at the age of 89 she has returned to court to win one last case.

Ms Symons decided to dust down her old legal skills when her friend, Mary Sylvester, suffered a broken leg and arm after being knocked down by a man in Bath city centre last October. Mrs Sylvester, aged 87, thought that the man had been after her handbag, and Ms Symons agreed.

The two ladies, who are both widows and who still enjoy an occasional round of golf together, decided to fight Mrs Sylvester’s case for compensation. This week, thanks to their tenacity, Mrs Sylvester was awarded £13,560 in compensation and legal costs.

Ms Symons, a grandmother of three who qualified as a solicitor in 1947, was determined to see justice done and agreed to represent her friend. She believed that Mrs Sylvester should be treated as a victim of crime, and made an application to the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority.

But the authority, which pays money to those who have suffered injury as a result of violent crimes, ruled that Mrs Sylvester had been the victim of an accident. The man who knocked her over was never traced.

They applied twice and were turned down twice. Ms Symons refused to accept the decision, and prepared an appeal, drawing up a watertight case with the help of evidence from the police officer who had attended the scene. The officer agreed that, even if the man had not been trying to steal the bag, he had behaved so recklessly that it could be treated as assault.

Finally, at a tribunal hearing in Bristol, Ms Symons won her case, having persuaded the bench that Mrs Sylvester should be treated as a victim of violent crime. But she admitted yesterday that she had been afraid of losing. She added that she had been very happy to represent her friend because no one else appeared to be standing up for her. The result had been “a very pleasant end to my legal career”.

Ms Symons said it had felt strange going back to court after so long, but once there she felt quite at home. “I’m so used to doing it that it didn’t really worry me,” she said. “I loved my life as a lawyer; if I could have my life over again I wouldn’t change a thing.”

She had been treated with great respect by the tribunal, she said, although she had asked them to be patient with her as she was a bit out of touch. “Afterwards I felt so relieved; it would have been awful to lose. We had quite a laugh about it afterwards. I told Mary, ‘You got the money and I got the glory’.”

However, she won’t be returning to court again. “I think I’ll fade into old age gracefully now,” she said.

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