siegfeargrieve

Feargrieve v the dragon: how it looked.


The SRA has doled out a mild sanction to the lawyer who tried to deck a German at the opera.

The regulator has issued Matthew Feargrieve with a rebuke and ordered him to pay its costs of £300 after deeming that he failed to uphold public trust and confidence in the profession by beating a gentleman who wanted to watch Wagner’s Ring Cycle.

Feargrieve, an offshore law specialist and former partner at Ozannes, Withers and Appleby, was convicted of common assault in 2019 after he got into a spat with a fellow patron of the Royal Opera House as the curtain lifted on a performance of Siegfried.

Ulrich Engler, a fashion designer, said he was subjected to a "constant flow of blows" simply because he sat in the empty seat next to the lawyer's partner, Catherine Chandler, and handed her the coat she had draped over it. Chandler disputed Engler's account and said he threw her coat on the floor after she objected to him sitting there.

Engler told the court that as the show began he was blindsided by "very hard" punches to his shoulder as Feargrieve told him, "How dare you talk to my wife like that?"

"I have never seen someone looking with so much anger and terror at me", said Engler.  

Engler was diagnosed with PTSD, which usually happens after six hours of Siegfried, not before, while Feargrieve managed to dislocate his own shoulder.

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Comments

Anon 01 October 21 07:54

Offshore law firms are full of dysfunctional people - that is why they are offshore - so this is not surprising.

Confused 01 October 21 09:23

Why is the punishment so low? Appreciate that common assault is a criminal matter and maybe the SRA felt they had it in hand - but I think he should be punished for lying to the police in the first place about how the ruck went down. Not covered in this article but covered in your previous one. 

Proud European FBPE 01 October 21 09:51

And this is why England is in the mess that it is in. Even at the opera you cannot suppress the belligerence and petty urge to lash out that your country is so well known for.

It is all so normal to you that you think a small fine is appropriate. Just like Republican Americans and their guns. You are both so similar.

What is particularly funny about this when read from the European mainland though is how your press has reported the opera as being some kind of rarefied cultural event. The reserve of the aristocracy and landed gentry. Here in more progressive societies we do not see it this way, as we long since recognised that the class system is a relic of the 18th century. Here the opera is popular and well attended by all, a diverse audience that welcomes people from all walks of life, politicians, lawyers, government workers, winemakers, you name it.

CEO 01 October 21 09:55

"The regulator has issued Matthew Feargrieve with a rebuke and ordered him to pay its costs of £300 after deeming that he failed to uphold public trust and confidence in the profession by beating a gentleman who wanted to watch Wagner’s Ring Cycle."

I like the idea that 'failing to uphold trust in the profession by beating a gentleman who wants to watch the Ring Cycle' is a specific charge in the SRA handbook.

GC 01 October 21 10:06

I continue to find it baffling that NQs can be (and are) struck off for leaving suitcases on trains but a conviction for a violent offence nets this chap nothing more than a stern talking to and a costs order that he probably satisfies using the harvest from the back of his sofa in the office. 

Proud European FBPE 01 October 21 10:17

Imagine a country so insular, with a people so ignorant of how their neighbours view them (because they cannot even speak their languages), that it's inhabitants could not conceive that anyone might view it as anything other than an all-conquering global empire to be looked up to and admired.

"Surely anyone who thought that we were angry, isolated people, clinging to an outdated sense of our own superiority, must be a spoof" they would protest.

 

Like I say, from Europe it is increasingly hard to tell you and the Trump people apart.

Anonymous 01 October 21 10:43

"Here the opera is popular and well attended by all, a diverse audience that welcomes people from all walks of life, politicians, lawyers, government workers, winemakers, you name it."

 

So you are all boring [*****] then?

Scep Tick 01 October 21 11:20

Had he done this in 1944 he would have got a medal. Surely he is guilty of nothing more than bad timing. 

Proud European FBPE 01 October 21 12:47

"Proud European - or is it proud Eurabian?"

 

You see, your first response to an explanation of how your neighbours see you is to lash out with crude xenophobia. 

It is all very sad to watch. You are so angry at 'foreigners', but it is all your own doing.

You will perhaps learn how to live peacefully with your neighbours in time, but I fear that things with you will get much worse before you finally come to your senses and appreciate the need to make them better. It seems certain that eventually Dublin will become the English-speaking example to you that you may follow the lead of.

Pom pous 01 October 21 13:10

>Here the opera is popular and well attended by all, a diverse audience that welcomes people from all walks of life

It certainly is diverse, you will find people in the audience from both Oxford and Cambridge.

SecularJurist 02 October 21 22:00

Je suis tellement d'accord, Proud European. Herr Feargrieve ist ein Arsch mit Öhren and some of the little Englander replies in this chain are not surprising. No wonder the English voted Leave. Britain has, today, got the PM and Government it deserves.

Anonymous 04 October 21 07:53

@GC - what I find amazing is that the SRA find this less serious than having consensual sex or asking someone out on a date.

Proud European FBPE 04 October 21 15:51

@07:53 - just another way that you English are becoming more and more like the Republican States. You are terrified of sex, but you see violence as normal.

It is because you have not yet thrown off the historical baggage of Christianity (you even still have clergy in your House of Lords) and so fear sex as some kind of sin; unlike here on the mainland where the Enlightenment is complete and we all view sex as a normal and enjoyable part of life. 

Similarly, you have never learned how to collaborate and work with your neighbours like grown-ups, which is why you find it so hard to let go of belligerence, threats and violence as your default conflict resolution strategies.

What makes it all the more remarkable is that you cling to this backwardness as a signifier of your own supposed superiority. It is all very strange to watch.

Anonymous 05 October 21 15:43

@15.51 - actually if you read the comment 7.53 was criticising the SRA's attitude towards sex.

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