A CROWN court judge delivered his sentence on ex-Shuttle reporter Tony Bishop after 65 years of reporting – ordering him to have a “long and happy retirement” at the age of 81.

Speaking to a packed courtroom of barristers, Crown Prosecution Service lawyers, ushers, clerks, security staff and probation officers, Judge Andrew Lockhart QC described Tony as “one of the most highly respected men ever to have trod the boards in courts of this land”.

“Such has been his contribution to the life of this court and so many others that this should in my view be an event marked not only here but countrywide,” he told Worcester Crown Court.

Tony, who began his career in 1951 at the Kidderminster Shuttle and later became a district chief reporter for the Wolverhampton Express and Star, covered many of the most notorious cases for the second half of the 20th century.

He had covered Worcester Crown Court for 48 years and, in his early years as a journalist, courts were “Assizes and Quarter Sessions”.

After retiring from the Express and Star, he continued court reporting on a freelance basis for the Shuttle and its sister titles in Worcestershire.

He covered major trials at the Old Bailey and in Stafford, Shrewsbury, Birmingham and Oxford and was the first provincial reporter to visit Afghanistan after the Russians invaded in 1980.

Tony and his wife, Sheila – who recently celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary – were guests of honour when Court 2 at Worcester Crown Court was assembled for a valedictory service led by Judge Lockhart, who spoke of the importance played by the media in the administration of justice.

He said: “It is a well hackneyed phrase that justice must not only be done but it must be seen to be done.

“And who better to have been amongst us upholding those values that Mr Tony Bishop?”

Barrister Abigail Nixon praised Bewdley-born Tony for his professionalism and his “friendly and charming manner”.

She said his retirement felt “like the ravens leaving the Tower of London”.

Tony, who lives in Hartlebury, replied to the tributes by relating his experiences in Northern Ireland in the 1960s, when he was shot at by the IRA while billeted with the army, and of a close call from death on the Khyber Pass when the lorry he had hitched a ride in overturned on the way back from Afghanistan.

The judge spoke of how it was little wonder that Tony’s children, Naomi and Chris, followed him in journalism. Naomi is a BBC producer and South Africa-based Chris is editor of Forbes Magazine in Africa.

Completing his tribute to Tony, Judge Lockhart gave him best wishes for a long and happy retirement, adding: “He can now enjoy reading rather than writing the headlines content in the knowledge that his work has been done so very well.”

Tony said later: “The Shirehall, where Worcester Crown Court is based, has been like a second home.

“Reporters once had to send copy by a public phone in the main hall.

“When the building was re-modelled in the 1990s, I managed to get a press room allocated.

“I later learned it had been a place of work for a lowly clerk on the County Archivist’s staff – her name was Stella Rimington, later to become head of MI5.”

He added: “The welcome from the staff at the valedictory was brilliant and quite eye-watering.”