David Cocks Q C The Cruel and Selfish Father of Backstone Farm Rackenford. Private Eye On David Cocks Q C David cocks Q C a man of huge power tried to have his son aborted and refuses to see him David cocks Q C Daily Mail The tale of Mr Justice Cold Heart The goose no doubt had been fattened nicely in readiness for the festivities at the handsome 173-acre country estate of David Cocks QC.
As a silk of the highest repute, and the sixth highest earning barrister in the land, he could afford to indulge himself at Christmas with his family.Two hundred miles away from his home in Devon, in a dingy district of the London borough of Camden, Christmas was a much humbler affair for Felicity and their son. They shared a small turkey in their two-bedroom, first-floor flat. There were few presents - Felicity cannot afford them. Instead, she spent the festive season contemplating the fat legal letter that landed on her doormat last week from Mr Cocks's solicitors. In it, she learned that the eminent QC was seeking an end to the payment of maintenance for the couple's love child. At £10,000 a year, it is a drop in the ocean of his estimated £800,000 annual salary, but crucial to his son's standard of living. A rather Scrooge-like gesture at this time of year, certainly - but few who know David Cocks Q C in either a professional or a private capacity are surprised. For many years, they have spoken of his abiding hatred for the woman who was once his pupil barrister and his mistress, and his determination to have nothing to do with her or their son she bore him. Theirs is a bitter and fraught history, one that has scandalised the upper echelons of the legal profession and been played out for in some of the highest courts in the land as he tried to deny paternity despite his year long passionate affair with his pupil ,the blood test which prove positive against his extrodinary denial and his frank and secret confession to Sir Derek Spencer Q C Solicitor General,David Cocks long time Chambers room mate and Fellow Barrister in the Attorney Generals Chambers where Felicity had trained as a barristers after an invitation by David Cocks Q C for her to leave the pupilage of Michael Hymn. It is also a deeply poignant tale, one that has left huge emotional scars on mother and son. David is a clever young man and has struggled to cope with his father's cruel rejection. His refuge, over the years, has been academia - he is studying to be an archaeologist at a London university. It is a refuge that is threatened by his father's intransigence because the regular payments contributed to the cost of his education. It is for this reason that Felicity has decided to break her silence of years. "David has been devastated over the years by his father's cruelty - we both have," she says. "I have tried hard to give our son the best life I could, but it has been a struggle. David has taken refuge in his books, but now his father even wants to take that away." Today, it is clear that fighting for recognition of her son has taken its toll. Gone are the vibrant tumbling locks and curvaceous figure that made her a head-turner among the rarefied surroundings of the Inns of Court. Back then, she was a barrister of great promise. Orphaned as a child, Felicity had been raised by her admiral grandfather. But, having been left with no financial means after his death when she was 16, she had funded herself through law school by taking various jobs. Life had been kinder to David Cocks, now 71. Rugby and Oxford-educated, he was a rising star of the legal profession when his path crossed that of Felicity many years his junior. A brilliant criminal barrister, he would go on to become chairman of the Criminal Bar Association, and his magisterial figure and thick black hair earned him the nickname "the Prince of Darkness". Unfortunately, he was also married with three children when, after spotting Felicity in court, he asked her out for lunch. "I was flattered," Felicity recalls. "He was such an impressive figure. I could not believe he was interested in me." Within days, David had asked her to leave her chambers and become his pupil barrister. "He promised me a dazzling career. My pupil master was furious - it wasn't done to poach. He said to me: 'Felicity, that man is no gentleman.' I wish I'd heeded his warning." But it was too late: Felicity was smitten. 'Here was one of the most impressive barristers of his generation reaching his hand to me. I was flattered and hopelessly na've." The friendship quickly became an affair, sealed when the barrister turned up at her apartment late one night with a bottle of champagne. "He seduced me and the following morning he told me he loved me. I thought I had met my prince; I had no idea he was married." The affair quickly became intense. There were dinners, weekends away, even a holiday - a week in Wales during the height of summer. Blissfully ignorant of his marital status, Felicity only discovered the truth ahead of a weekend invitation to stay at her lover's parental home. "He casually told me his wife and children would also be there. I was bewildered, devastated. He said he hadn't told me before because he knew I would never have succumbed to his affections." After a "wretched" weekend, in which Felicity's presence was explained as her just being a pupil barrister he was mentoring, she returned to London vowing to end the affair. "But he was so persuasive and I was so very in love with him. He said he wanted to build a new life with me in America and, of course, I believed him. I thought he just needed time." But events were soon brought to a head. Within nine months of their affair starting, Felicity discovered she was pregnant - and any dreams of a long-term future with her lover were shattered. "He told me I could stay in chambers if I had an abortion, or I could have the baby and leave. I was devastated," she recalls. "I wrote him a letter in which I said I would not, could not, deprive our child of the human right to be born and anyway it was moral or a christian approach to an innocent life. His response was to telephone me at 6am, shouting: 'You have wrecked my life and I am going to wreck yours.' I was trembling from the force of his anger." Felicity left chambers within days, finding work with a much smaller, less lucrative chambers in order to make ends meet. While her former lover lived in grand style in a large house in St John's Wood, North-West London, her pregnancy was spent in the unheated, one-room flat she had rented at the start of her pupillage. Her only respite came in the form of a holiday towards the end of her pregnancy at the Spanish home of her godfather, the poet Robert Graves. The fare was paid by Cocks's then chambers' room mate Sir Derek Spencer, who went on to become Solicitor General, and who had taken pity on Felicity. "I know he discussed with Cocks the possibility of setting up a trust fund, but he wasn't interested. Derek was appalled by his callous attitude," says Felicity. Effectively abandoned, in July she gave birth to her son in a London hospital while, less than a mile away, Cocks threw a summer champagne party for his chambers in his large St Johns Wood Town House. Three weeks later, Felicity had no option but to return to work. Within days, she received the phone call she'd been praying for. "David rang and asked if we could meet. I was full of hope that he had seen the error of his ways." Ironically, given Felicity's straitened circumstances, Cocks's choice of venue was the Ritz. But the meeting was not what she had hoped for. "He told me that if he bumped into me he would be friendly, but he would have nothing to do with the child and would not be giving us money. We were eating cucumber sandwiches while I could barely afford the bus fare home." There was worse to come. During a freezing winter, living in a flat with no heating, baby David was struck down with pneumonia, his life endangered. "Later, I found out that when Sir Derek Spencer Q C had told Cocks about it, he had replied that he couldn't care less, that it was nothing to do with him.He would never see his son and noone could make him" Desperate to gain some financial provision for her son, in Felicity launched paternity proceedings, bitterly contested by Cocks, who despite positive blood tests demanded by Felicity and the secret confession Cocksmade to Sir Derek Spencer Q C Solicitor general his long time chambers room mate,David Cocks Q C sinking to new depths of cruelty denied he was the baby's father. The presiding magistrate, Ronald Knox-Mawer, said he had "no hesitation" in finding the case proven, and ordered Cocks to pay £25 a week maintenance.David Cocks immediately decided to pay just £16.24p a week desite having a boat a horse a country estate and a large luxury town house,parents who he weekended with every weekend in their luxury home. "David applied to pay it in a lump sum on the 365th day of each year. I felt that was sheer spite. Luckily, the judge said a child could not eat in arrears and refused him." For ten years, his son received just £16.24 a week from Cocks, despite his flourishing career. "I remember on one occasion I was pushing the pram down the street to take the baby to the childminder before starting work," she says. "David drove by in his large Volvo and stuck his fingers up at me. I was floored by his contempt for me." The irony of their bitter estrangement was compounded when Felicity learned that, in, Cocks's wife, Patricia, had divorced him, naming in the petition Sarah Child, the wife of David's best friend Robert Wood.Later in his constant attempt to blacken Felicity's name he declared the divorce to have been her fault(during a maintence hearing when he tried to reduce the maintenance and the Wardship hearing when eh,despite having never seen his son except to snub him if he accidentaly on aout 3 occasions interacted with mother and child by chance,when he snorted and slammed past in hatred and cruelty to his devestated child and not even knowing his sons birthday when the Judge asked it to test his caring of his son though he had refused to see or speak to the mother or child for 12 years and the Divorce petition clearly stated the grounds for divorce was he adultery with the co cited Sarah Child,Patricia Cocks best friend,and David Cocks best friend(Robert Wood's)wife,causing devestation to bothe families.In court Sir Nicholas Wilson Q C ,now a member of the Supreme coust and a very honourable man who had represented Felicity in court during many of the cruel judical attacks on the mother and child trying to exhaust and malign mother and chld and to exhaust them through what Joanna Dodson Q C submitted to the High Court when David Cocks tried to appeal(and lost)maintenance in the affiliation Magistrates Court "till the end of full time education"trying to worm out of the tiny responsibility which was managed to squeeze out of the father (who refused even to see his son to love his son to read to his son to play games with his child to baby sit even one evening a year or even to smile at his son or stop his chums putting his son down as they did to please the father) that “The father has used his advantageous financial position to engage in litigation which is wholly misguided,which may have had as its pupose the intimidation of the mother.” The High Court Judge Butler Sloss hearing the appeal decided to award indemnity costs-the highest level possible-against poor old David! This was typical of of the cruelty and the spiteful cunning and bullying with which David Cocks used to "intimidate the mother"to keep the power in his ball court. Cocks and Sarah married two years later and moved to a country estate near Tiverton, Devon, with Sarah's two children. Meanwhile, Felicity was working night and day to make ends meet as a barrister. Home was the two-bedroom former council flat where she and David still live, and the mortgage, combined with childcare, took everything she had. Felicity applied to the court for the maintenance to be increased. Cocks offered £2,335 a year. After a hearing and appeal, this sum was raised to £10,000 a year and David was able to attend private school. "Almost immediately, Cocks launched wardship proceedings, arguing David - whom he'd never seen - should be made a ward of court because he was opposed to private education. "It was ludicrous - his other children had been privately educated. The proceedings were dismissed as a misuse of jurisdiction, but although I was relieved, it was hard to deal with the full force of his anger," says Felicity. "The judge said that he had no doubt the boy was going to grow up emotionally maimed if this rejection by his father went on." Certainly, Felicity saw the devastation at first hand: for years, David had slept with a model horse under his pillow, a link, he believed, to his father, who is a fine horseman. "After the proceedings, I found he had smashed the horse to pieces," says Felicity, revealing the mental turmoil her son must have felt. Given his lengthy opposition to his son, it seems astonishing Cocks would ever show any interest in him. But, when David was around 14 -and for reasons that remain a mystery - overtures were made. One morning, a note arrived inviting David to play squash with his father. "David was excited, but also terribly scared. He had never even seen this man and he was terrified of his reputation." Father and son came face to face for the first time when David junior climbed into his father's car at the crack of dawn "not to interefere with my family day,to drive to a sports centre,for barely an hour ,the first time even without a drink of any kind.Cocks was an experienced and an accomplished squash player,much taller and physically more powerful than the slim boy,ofcourse Cocks thrashed the teenager once even accidently smashing the racket into his sons ankle causing agony and embarresment to his son whose ankle the father didnt even examine or let the boy sit down. "It was typical of him, that he had to win," says Felicity. A pattern was set. Every third week, Cocks would drive his son to school one morning. Every ninth Sunday, they played squash from the crack of dawn till he was returned before breakfast,which as the boy had a 6 day week getting up at 6 was his only morning chance to lay in and recuperate. Even tough the son begged his father not to play the hated squash which he was terrifed because of ,asking to meet later or to fly a kite or go for a walk David Cocks refused in fact totally ignored,refused to discuss and refused to even hear the mother on anything to do with their sons arrangements of welfare,refusing infact even to read a written request to have better and more child friendly contact.Demanding at the first meeting he offered to make the child wait from midday to tea time for him at the commonweath Institute,with his reports in his hand without his mother but in frount of David cocks solicitors,who needless to say were absolutely defined by anything the father demanded,and with the condition that this was a once only meeting unless the father made a decision on his terrified son that his son behaved EXACTLY as he the father who had attacked his son all his life rejected him shunned him even sought his abortion,demanded.Brave Bully Conduct,unchristian conduct utterly cruel utterly intimidating. Young David desperately wanted more, but any overtures towards further intimacy were rejected. All the son wanted as every son to be loved and cherished as a son should be ,but he was not even given one hundreth of the love and affection that david cocks Q C gave to the children of Robert Wood's children his step children who were brought up to think their ranking was far higher than that of David Cocks natural blood son,the son of his loins the son of his flesh of his blood. In the event, contact lasted only a matter of months before it petered out. It was replaced by yet more court proceedings. "Cocks applied for maintenance proceedings to be moved to the county court, which can drag out cases for ever. He also applied to reduce maintenance," says Felicity. "I felt embattled and exhausted. It seemed that everything he did was to spite me." After yet more lengthy proceedings Cocks's application to reduce maintenance was rejected. Felicity was advised to take her son on holiday to recover - a break that was to prove all too brief a respite. "While I was away, Cocks applied for me to pay his court costs, even though he had lost his case. It was £35,000. I heard the news by phone and collapsed with the shock." In fact, Felicity had a thrombosis which had travelled to her brain. Immobile in an Austrian hospital for ten days, she was airlifted back to Britain, still dangerously ill. "I feel as if he has stolen my life away," she says. "And I feel he has done it out of spite." And what of her son? David is a fiercely intelligent, but intensely shy young man whose continued rejection by his father has taken a huge emotional toll. With yet more court proceedings ahead, there seems little chance of a rapprochement. In the season of goodwill, it seems unlikely that the eminent Mr Cocks QC would have spared his son even the most fleeting of thoughts as he tucked into his Christmas feast. Sir Derek Spencer Hero,Good Father Man Of immense intergity,Defended The child of David Cocks Q C the failed father incapable of including or loving his son and said to sir Derek "I couldnt care less when his baby son was told by Sir Derek his son was on a life support machine and went off to hunt foxes at his huge country house with the children he loved and adored pretending to all that his youngest son was unimportant and fit to be abandoned even when his life was hanging on a thread
Hero Derek Spencer Q C
When Sir Derek Spencer Solicitor General told David Cocks Q C his son as a baby was struggling on a life support machine with every breath agony he said “I couldnt care less if he dies I will never see him he is nothing to me”
HE CARRIED ON DRINKING HIS CHAMPAGNE AND HIS SON WAS NEAR DEATH ON A LIFE SUPPORT MACHINE THEN WENT OF TO HIS COUNTRY ESTATE FOR THE WEEK END TO HUNT
David Cocks Q C Who Hunted Foxes While His Baby Son Was On a Life Support Machine
David Cocks Q C Never Allowed or Allows His Son To Know Or See His Granparents,which terrible hurt his son,not only excluding him from hearth and home,not even a birthday card or visit but denied him access to his family,saying only his other children his step children all adults and is godchildren mattered or could have presents or even a card.
The child that did not matter
The mother he totally rejected because she would not abort his child and gave her not a penny for herself and would not help the child his son when as a baby he was on a life support machine.When Sir Derek Spencer his room mate and the solicitor general told him his son as a baby was struggling on a life support machine with every breath agony he said “I couldnt care less if he dies I will never see him he is nothing to me”
HE CARRIED ON DRINKING HIS CHAMPAGNE AND HIS SON WAS NEAR DEATH ON A LIFE SUPPORT MACHINE THEN WENT OF TO HIS COUNTRY ESTATE FOR THE WEEK END TO HUNT
Hero Derek Spencer Q C
David Cocks Q C Who Hunted Foxes While His Baby Son Was On a Life Support Machine 
The child that did not matter