Getting a bad name in the dock

"Nasty B'Stard take the stand." These words will reverberate around the west of England's newest court next week.

But it is not some generic term for those hauled before the court, and it is not that the clerk who must call the name finds the defendant abhorrent. Nasty B'Stard is the name of a man charged with a tachometer offence, and will be one of the first to echo across the courtrooms of the pounds 3m North Wiltshire magistrates' court when it opens on 5 August. Mr B'Stard, a lorry driver from Shirley, West Midlands, was christened Mike Facey but, in a career as a kick boxer, changed his name by deed poll.

Alexandra Williams