 A scrap dealer unknowingly participates in a Special Branch sting operation designed to trap a known terrorist, who is killed resisting arrest. The dealer claims he didn t know the goods he was trafficking in included arms and asks Rumpole to defend him. As there is no one able to look after his only son, to whom he is devoted, Rumpole feels an emotional attachment to the case. Phyllida is also suffering from separation anxiety too as Erskine-Brown wants to send their son Tristan off to a boarding school. Ironically, she is assigned to preside at the trial in her newly appointed position of recorder, a type of criminal judge. When Ballard threatens to evict Uncle Tom from chambers because of his golfing in the clerks  office, Rumpole becomes indignant and threatens to resign in support of his colleague when this current case concludes.