“It is usually in a defendant’s best interest to leave advocacy to the advocates,” warns Geoffrey Robertson QC. Moreover, as Mr Randle points out in the book, being emotionally involved can cloud your judgement. The detachment that a lawyer brings is not to be lightly foregone.The decision to defend yourself should not be based on the strength of your case or the weakness of your bank balance alone One’s personal qualities should come into the equation Mr Randle is clearly articulate and confident “You do need to have a certain confidence,” he admits. “You have to be able to sum up your case and you need to have a good grasp of your material.”If it’s a long case, some of these abilities will develop with practice, but while you’re learning, some judges can seem less than sympathetic.Ms Steel has felt some along the way were more receptive to arguments from lawyers than from her and her co-defendant. “Even if we’d researched something in law books or we’d had advice from a helpful lawyer, if we were saying it, it just didn’t seem to carry as much weight.”Although she has still to come out the other side, Ms Steel has no regrets about taking on the British legal system. “It has been difficult, but to other people in a similar situation I would say, go ahead and do it yourselves.”And, as Michael Randle says, if you go down, at least you will go down fighting.’How to Defend Yourself in Court’ is available for pounds 4.99 plus 50p P&P from the Civil Liberties Trust (0171-403 3888)..

Thousands of Sarajevans poured across to visit the homes they had fled in 1992, or just to see the sights.The column moved forward towards the centre of the flat-lands and shattered high-rise tower-blocks. “It’s like Disneyland, it’s just like coming to Disneyland,” cried one teenage girl.”Well it’s not too badly damaged,” a middle-aged man said. “There is no sign of shelling in the centre.” Another woman gazed at the empty window frames, which had been stripped by Serbs who had fled “I don’t recognise anything,” she said. One man found his home empty, save for the cat he lost when he fled in 1992.There were many reunions – cautious greetings shouted from windows by those who stayed behind in Grbavica There were hugs and kisses on the street. And there was at least one instant eviction by a Croat couple who had returned to find an elderly Serb woman living in their flat.Despite the groups of young men roaming around, there was little sign of the aggressive acts seen in the western suburb of Ilidza.

Except, of course, for those still intrigued by how, and at whose hand, Jimmy Hoffa met his end.Rupert Cornwell. Good cheer, in spite of sorrow over the destruction, yesterday filled the streets of Grbavica, emptied of most of its Serb residents, as thousands of Sarajevans crossed the former front line to celebrate the reunification of the city. Shortly after dawn, a thin green line of Bosnian government police took control of Grbavica, the last of the five Serb-held suburbs handed over under the Dayton peace plan, ending the four-year wartime division of Sarajevo.
A few of the 3,000-odd residents who had not joined the Serb exodus wandered the streets, where houses still smouldered, handing out plum brandy and welcoming the new police force.Most remained barricaded in their homes, maintaining the security measures taken against departing Serb arsonists until they could judge the mood of the incomers.Three hours later, the Bosnian police opened the Bridge of Brotherhood and Unity, the ravages around marking the front line that ran through the Miljacka River to the city. Cautious and discreet even by Mafia standards, the Detroit organisation has avoided the bloody internal feuds which helped bring down John Gotti in New York. Here the factions didn’t shoot each other, they married into each other.For the time being, Tocco and his colleagues are out on bail of up to $200,000 each -”just like paying a parking ticket”, one said as he left the courthouse last week.Probably, if they are put away for good, modern Detroit will hardly notice.

Don’t bother us and we won’t bother you, is the Mafia’s social contract – almost a friendship treaty in this age of random violence. And who takes Cosa Nostra very seriously these days? Not the average citizen, who is far more alarmed by the crack cocaine business, drive-by shootings and the gang wars which made Detroit a byword for urban mayhem in the 1970s and 1980s.Tocco and his colleagues, by contrast, seem to have preferred old-fashioned pursuits like illegal betting, protection rackets, loan-sharking, and the odd investment in Las Vegas. His brother Vito’s wife insists that her husband, also indicted last week, is merely a “retired fruit-seller”. She told the newspaper: “I’m waiting for him to come home and explain it all.”If it sounds reassuring, in an odd way it is. His wife once cried when he was acquitted on extortion charges, and he tells acquaintances: “We are people just like everyone else.”As for “Tony Jack”, he reputedly loves flowers and keeps “the most beautiful lawn in the neighbourhood”. His criminal record consists of a $25 misdemeanour fine 30 years ago, for attending an illegal cockfight. Neighbours have described him as “kind and generous, a great guy”, who would give them tomatoes and zucchini from his garden.Tocco’s underboss Anthony Zerilli, son of one of the men who founded the Detroit Mafia when it smuggled booze across the river from Canada in prohibition times, lives in a farmhouse with a trampoline and swing set outside the back door.