Judicial career Pickles served as an assistant recorder of the Crown Court from 1963, and then served as a Recorder of Bradford from 1972 to 1976, when he was appointed Circuit Judge on the north eastern circuit. His career as a judge was controversial, and some of his judgments made headline news, resulting in calls for judges to be held more accountable. He came to public attention in 1985 when he wrote an article that was published in The Daily Telegraph criticising the Conservative government's policy of widening probation, insisting that imprisonment was necessary to deter offenders. His statements to the press breached the voluntary rules established by Lord Kilmuir in the 1950s that restricted press statements to senior judges. He publicly criticised the Lord Chancellor Lord Hailsham as "a brooding quixotic dictator". Hailsham retaliated that Pickles was "a sort of anti-Judge who does all the things that a Judge ought not to do". The Kilmuir rules were abolished when Lord Mackay became Lord Chancellor in October 1987. There was speculation that Pickles would be dismissed in 1989, after he spoke to the press about a case he had heard which was subject to appeal, but instead he was given a "serious rebuke". Among his most controversial sentencing decisions was a case in early 1989 in which he sentenced a man to a period of probation after he was convicted of sexually assaulting a six-year-old girl. Later that year, he jailed a woman for seven days for contempt of court when she refused to give evidence against her ex-boyfriend, who had assaulted her - she was later freed by the Court of Appeal. In early 1990 he imprisoned a 19-year-old single mother to six months on a charge of theft for letting her friends take goods - the sentence was replaced by a period of probation on appeal. Pickles was a vocal proponent of the legalisation of cannabis, and also advocated the legalisation of prostitution. Television and writing Outside the law, Pickles enjoyed writing, particularly writing plays. He was a member of Halifax Thespians and Halifax Authors' Circle. In addition to tabloid journalism in The Sun and the Daily Sport, he also wrote several books, including two memoirs Straight from the Bench (1987) and Judge for Yourself (1992) and a novel Off the Record (1993). He also wrote many plays, some of which were aired on BBC radio. Pickles appeared