And finally… judge loses cases to airline

Mr Justice Peter Smith asked British Airways what it had done with his bags but it declined to answer before requesting the judge recuse himself.

He has now done so though not without saying he did not think any “reasonably minded observer would think, merely because I raised issues about the non-delivery of my luggage, that it should raise the possibility of bias”.

This was the second attempt to have him removed from the case. BA’s lawyers had previously said the judge lacked the requisite experience in competition cases to handle this one.

BA is being sued by hundreds of companies over losses arising from a conspiracy between the airline and others to fix air cargo charges.

Sir Peter is famous for including a coded message in his judgment in a copyright case over the novel The Da Vinci Code in 2006.