IN October 2000, a Scarborough legal firm entered the Evening Press Business Awards. "Messengers Solicitors," we wrote, "of Valley Bridge Parade, started by David Messenger, now specialises in criminal work." And how.

Recent criminal work undertaken by Mr Messenger, a county court judge before his trial, included drunkenly obstructing the police and yanking a bell push from the wall of his cell.

Alas, Mr Messenger's kebab shop kerfuffle has kiboshed his career. And that's a shame.

I'm not suggesting he should have been let off. His conviction sends a clear message to everyone, from the most respected in the land to judges. Go out on the booze, swear at uniformed officers, threaten to sue them for assault and damage your police cell if you must.

But don't then expect to command the moral high ground when the case comes to court.

For his trouble, the remorseless Mr Messenger is more than £7,000 out of pocket. Even for Scarborough - the Monte Carlo of the North Riding - that is an expensive night out.

Now the Lord Chancellor's department could compound this punishment by stripping him of his right to judge. I hope it doesn't. For one thing, hundreds of solicitors get away with daylight robbery every week: just go to any court and listen to the greediest outline their fees.

More importantly, our judiciary needs a judge who knows his way around a kebab shop.

Despite recent reforms, most people still consider judges to be a remote bunch. Even Home Secretary David Blunkett famously asked for "judges to live in the same real world as the rest of us".

In the real world, most men do not retire to the drawing room of their country house of an evening with a drop of vintage port taken from their large cellar and a selection of imported cheeses delivered on bone china by their housekeeper.

They go out, drink several pints of beer in the pub and dive into the late night takeaway for a kebab on the way home. Whether or not you feel censorious about the British love of a pub crawl, that is the way many of us choose to relax.

It is also the cause of much low level crime. You know the sort of thing: intoxicated man tries to defend his mate or girl from some perceived slight or harassment, scuffle ensues, court appearance follows. David Messenger knows all about that (and he would have enjoyed far more sympathy had he admitted as much).

This kind of drunken foolishness helps to account for the astonishing statistic that one in three men will have a criminal conviction for something other than a motoring offence by the age of 30.

Mr Messenger waited until he was 49 to collect his criminal record. And this small stain on his character is now visible to all. York's Joseph Rowntree Foundation discovered that fewer than one man in 100 reveals his past offences to potential employers. Our Scarborough solicitor has no choice.

Many will argue that his disrespectful behaviour towards police officers should automatically debar him from the judicial system. Certainly his subsequent lack of humility is hard to forgive.

But an inside knowledge of the normal boozy habits of the general public is not something judges should be ashamed of. Indeed, it should be well nigh compulsory, if they are to understand as well as arbitrate.

When the famed figure of Justice standing atop the Old Bailey swaps her sword and scales for a pint and a large doner, we will be making progress.

Updated: 11:55 Wednesday, October 01, 2003