We were just friends, says Carman lawyer

George Carman QC was hailed as one of the greatest advocates of the 20th century when he died a year ago. Today fellow barrister Karen Phillipps has spoken publicly for the first time about their 15-year intense, often volatile, but ever platonic relationship.

She used the occasion to counter recent attacks by Carman's only child Dominic who, in a scathing biography, accused him of being a vicious wife-beater, secret bisexual and a drunk.

She said: "Early on he told me he was in love with me and asked if I could fall in love with him. I told him: 'We'll be friends.' A few months later he astonished me by producing an engagement ring - a diamond solitaire - one evening at his flat in Lincoln's Inn Fields."

She added that when she turned down his offer of marriage, Carman returned the ring to the Knightsbridge shop where he'd bought it. Ms Phillipps said Carman didn't have the qualities she was looking for in a husband. "He was too intense and very controlling. I couldn't cope with it and needed to escape." She said: "We didn't have a sexual relationship and he never put me under any pressure. I don't think he had a high sex drive." Was he gay? Not in Ms Phillipps's view. She said: "George and I talked about homosexuality and he found it distasteful, not in an ignorant way, but he didn't want to know about it. I don't believe he was gay."

She told The Times newspaper: "He never drank excessively when he was with me. I'm sure if I wasn't there he drank more. Many barristers do." On the wife-beating allegation, Ms Phillipps said: "George never showed any sign of being violent with me, though he was volatile."

Ms Phillipps was wounded by Dominic's comments implying that she had stayed with Carman for financial gain. She said: "I wasn't what you'd call a kept woman. George didn't contribute towards my flat or pay any of my expenses. He was always worried about money and whether there would be another case."