From the age of thirteen Chester Porter QC (1926–2021) knew he wanted to be a barrister. After completing school, he moved straight on to a law degree at the University of Sydney; he was 21 when he was admitted to the Bar in New South Wales in 1948. His big break came in 1951 when he acted as a junior to John Wentworth (Jack) Shand QC before a royal commission into the case of Frederick McDermott, a shearer sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 1947. Porter was involved in the Royal Commissions into the 1964 collision between the aircraft carrier HMAS Melbourne and destroyer HMAS Voyager, and Lindy Chamberlain's 1982 conviction for the murder of her baby daughter Azaria. Porter so effectively discredited elements of the case against Chamberlain that it led to the establishment of the National Institute of Forensic Science. Some of Porter's other cases included the defence of corrupt detective Roger Rogerson against bribery charges and the defence of District Court Judge John Foord, who faced charges of attempting to pervert the course of justice. Foord's acquittal gave rise to the motto 'Chester Porter Walks on Water', securing his reputation for devastatingly deft cross-examination. After retiring from the law in 2000, Porter published three books, The Gentle Art of Persuasion: How to Argue Effectively (2005); The Conviction of the Innocent: How the Law can Let us Down (2007); and the memoir Walking on Water: A Life in the Law (2004).
