The second-oldest profession is set to restyle the oldest profession, as politics plans a name-change for prostitution. The term “common prostitute” means a person who, in return for reward, offers his or her body for purposes of lewdness. The current Criminal Justice Bill, however, is set to replace the phrase “common prostitute” in street offences with “person”. So, it will be an offence for “a person” persistently to loiter or solicit for the purposes of prostitution.

David Hanson, the Justice minister, said: “What we need to get away from is labelling individuals. This will have the benefit of improving the lives of those who are involved in prostitution.” Historically, the adjective “common”, meaning “for everyone” was used to distinguish the woman from someone who had only one or two clients. Though, as Professor Tony Honoré has noted, “a prostitute is really no more indiscriminate than a dentist or garage owner, although she is called a ‘common’ prostitute and he is not called a common dentist or garage owner.”

Since 1162, when a law was made to protect prostitutes by settling the rents they should pay, government has controlled various aspects of the sex industry. The government’s earliest rules, though, did not mean that life for the sex workers was a bed of roses. The same law that offered rent protection to prostitutes also addressed their working hours: “No single woman to take money to lye with a man, except she lye with him all night, till the morrow.”

The phenomenon of restaurateurs litigating if they have been hurt by bad reviews is growing. The f-word is often only a syllable away from the l-word, as chefs hire lawyers to get the whole hog of damages with a side order of revenge (served cold), and a slice of humble pie for the critic. Earlier this year the High Court in Belfast ordered a newspaper to pay £25,000 damages to the manager of a Goodfellas restaurant for a damning review covering points from strength of the cola to the texture of the squid. A relevant English case in this area is about fast food, although the litigation was not rapid. The 1990s McLibel trial was the longest-running case in legal history. David Morris and Helen Steel were sued by McDonald’s for a critical leaflet they distributed. The trial ran for three years and resulted in a 762-page judgment. McDonald’s won the case, although the judge noted that the company had “pretended to a positive nutritional benefit which their food did not match”.

Judges themselves have sometimes given personal opinions demonstrating that not all their time is spent in abstemious reading of law reports. In a tax case from Ireland in 1894, Chief Justice O’Brien referred to a “two dozen bottles of champagne, Ayala 1885 ¬ a very good brand …; one dozen Marcobrunn hock ¬ a very nice hock; one dozen Château Margaux ¬ an excellent claret, one dozen bottles of fine old Dublin whiskey ¬ the best whiskey that can be got …; six bottles of Amontillado sherry ¬ a stimulating sherry...” A decidedly knowledgeable judge of drink.

In a 1932 American case, Justice Brandeis said that “the seemingly impossible sometimes happens”. This might have been running through the head of German lawyer Jens Lorek recently as he was preparing to represent his client Paul Hoffmann. To get Mr Hoffmann out of a mental ward, where he was put after romping about town naked, Mr Lorek is arguing his client’s instructions which are that “about two years ago a cross-shaped space ship sucked me up and took me to space. When, I came round, it was daylight again”.

The English courts have traditionally had little patience with the supernatural. In 1944, when Helen Duncan was tried under the Witchcraft Act 1735 for conducting a séance over a chemist’s shop in London, she offered to demonstrate her powers for the court. The judge refused to allow the lights to be dimmed for such an event, and Duncan’s conviction was upheld on appeal. Some aspects of the unearthly, though, have touched the law. The old courts in Dublin used to be served by a lane called “Hell” in which there were many lawyers’ chambers, so, periodically, adverts appeared saying “To let, furnished apartments in Hell. They are well suited for a lawyer.”

Gary Slapper is Professor of Law, and Director of the Centre for Law at the Open University

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