I have all-too-personal experience of British courts/judges -- from Magistrate's Court to Crown Court all the way up to the High Court (this was before the new Supreme Court was implemented) -- ignoring "inconvenient" facts, laws and even blatant perjury; also of a judge going from a sympathetic attitude (during the first session) to a surprisingly hostile one (during the next session some months later). This was over a speeding ticket, and I remember my (English, btw) hubbie & I thinking, "If they play this dirty when a speeding ticket is involved, what lengths will they go to when the stakes are higher?" So I'm afraid I have no trouble believing that a Judge could have been "leaned on"...