Our recent crop of courtroom howlers and headlines – bizarre and brilliant – has prompted this from Nic Outterside at the Aberdeen Press and Journal:

My favourite headline of all time was written by a sports sub at The Scotsman in 1997 and related to former Middlesboro’ star Emerson arriving back late from South America. He was also linked in transfer talks with Italian club Parma. So the headline had to be: Emerson late and linked with Parma

Court room howlers:
The most famous I can recall was from a High Court divorce hearing in the mid 1980s when the wife cited that her husband was often away seeing Bruce Springsteen. In innocent pomposity the judge asked: “And this Mr Springsteen, is he a friend of the family?”

My own worst nightmare was reporting from Colwyn Bay magistrates court when the 19-year-old son of the Chief Constable was up for motoring offences. Throughout my entire court copy I put the father’s christian name instead of the son’s. To make things worse the son still lived at home with his parents so the two shared the same address. The copy passed through newsdesk, subs and editor unnoticed. Thankfully my career was saved by a sharp-eyed stone sub, just as the plate was being winged away to the press.

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