Ice-cream entrepreneurs, the Myatt brothers

INTERVIEWED BY: KATERINA DIMNIK

Charlie Myatt (FH 81-86) was a criminal barrister for 25 years and spent the last five years of his legal career prosecuting serious child sexual abuse cases. In 2018 Charlie jumped ship to join his older brothers Paul (FH 70-75) and Rod (FH 72-77), in their high-end ice cream business Criterion Ices, in Suffolk. The barrister-turned-luxury food marketeer shares his experiences of the enjoyment he gets from working in a family business, despite this year’s challenges.

What inspired you to become a criminal barrister?

At 16 years old I remember being encouraged to go to a careers talk by a criminal barrister in Old Big School at Tonbridge. I thought it was a career that would suit me as I liked the idea of being self-employed, dealing with interesting cases and thinking on my feet.

How did you come to focus on such a tough aspect of the law – child sexual abuse?

When you start out, you take on whatever’s given to you. It was really by accident rather than design that I became involved in serious child sex abuse cases – mainly prosecuting. For the last five years of my legal career it became about 80 per cent of my workload.

I found it greatly rewarding – particularly when representing people who have been victims for many years. It takes a huge amount of courage for victims to come forward, sometimes 20-30 years later. I wanted to help ensure their voices were heard and believed.

Were there times you thought a judge or jury got a decision wrong?

Yes, there were certainly times, but obviously it’s not down to me, it’s down to a jury of 12. I told victims that if there’s a ‘not guilty’ verdict, that doesn’t mean the jury don’t believe you or think you are a liar. All it means is that there was enough doubt sown by the defence that a jury can’t be sure something happened, so they can’t convict.

So, to be a barrister, you also have to be a social worker, a counsellor and a support network to a victim?

Part of the job is to meet witnesses beforehand and afterwards and I would always do what I could to help them through what was a very traumatic experience of reliving things that happened many years ago. Sometimes I’d be dealing with children and incidents that had happened very recently and I’d have to explain things so that a six or seven year old child could understand. So yes, there were a lot of skills involved aside from standing up and arguing a case in court.

What would you say are the highlights, and frustrations, of being a barrister?

I used to love taking on a case from the start, getting the police involved in investigations and crafting robust arguments that could be easily followed by a jury. I took pride in trying to create something that was understandable to a jury, especially in a complex case. After a conviction, I’d get a sense of pride that maybe, because of my actions, the right result had happened. Sometimes the right result would be an acquittal. It wasn’t about getting a conviction at all costs, but about making sure the evidence was presented fairly.

When trials are delayed through lack of funding, victims and witnesses get deeply frustrated and disillusioned with the process and that puts people off coming forward or speaking to the police. The system lets itself down at times and that is difficult and frustrating to see.

Overall, is it a career you would recommend to current pupils?

Oh absolutely, yes. It’s hard work. You get paid reasonably well - although you’re often paid on legal aid rates which are set by the government - so don’t do it for the money! Being able to make a difference to people in real life situations is unbelievably rewarding. You can’t beat the feeling of standing up in court to address a jury and when something you say attracts their attention, and you start to see heads nodding. When a jury understands your case, and get the right result at the end, it is an amazing feeling.

What took you from barrister to ice cream maker, and are there any skills you picked up in your career that were transferable?

I loved my job and could have continued doing it for years, but it took a family tragedy to make me stop and change direction. My mother-in-law died suddenly and unexpectedly aged only 67, and it made me realise that life is short and it’s important to spend more time with people you love. My parents were getting older and I was always rushing off to work, rather than spending time with them. Initially, I took a year’s sabbatical to take stock and help my brothers with the business, and it became clear that I could bring some value to it. So here we are three years later, still working together and it’s been great to be able to support each other during the challenges of the pandemic.

In terms of transferable skills, I’m quite good at dealing with people in different - sometimes awkward - situations. My role as Sales and Marketing Director means going out and meeting people, head chefs or owners of small chains of hotels for example. Reading people, understanding people, getting the best out of people and persuading people - those are the transferable skills I’ve brought to Criterion Ices.

What’s it like working with your brothers?

My eldest brother Paul, who ran the mixed dairy/arable farm before we diversified into ice cream, is the Managing Director and my middle brother Rod is the Creamery Director – he did a degree in Hotel Management and Catering and worked in the industry in various guises before Criterion Ices. They set up the business about 30 years ago, converting some old farm buildings and using excess milk to make ice cream as a way of making value from what would otherwise be sold for fractions of a pence.

I’ve always been the baby brother - there’s never been any rivalry or bullying - we always got on well. They bicker between themselves but they’ve worked together for 30 years and it

doesn’t bother me because I know how much they get on and value each other. It’s great working with them, especially during the pandemic, when there were often just the three of us – we’ve been able to support each other tremendously.

How has the pandemic affected business?

It’s been a tough year. Last March everything came to a stop. We were about to deliver to the Theatre Royal in Norwich for their sell-out Les Misérables production, when we got a call saying they were closing and they didn’t need the order. From then on things were tough, and we’ve even had to take stock back from distributors who didn’t have the room for it. We secured a loan, underwritten by Government, to help us with cash flow before the furlough scheme came in. And in August, when it became clear that there would be no panto season at Christmas and that theatres weren’t opening up any time soon, we had to take the difficult decision to make twelve redundancies across our creamery in Suffolk and distribution centre in London. That was so hard, as the people were like family to us, but we’ve been relieved to see that they all found new employment.

There was a period last summer where we were just down to the three of us, and we’ve had time to think through the business and decide what to focus on when things opened up again. We decided to concentrate on the niche market for premium ice creams and cultivating our existing client base including theatres nationwide and the National Trust across East Anglia and the South East.

What is it about your ice cream that has so many prestigious establishments lining up to put you on their menus?

It’s the pride in what we do. Rod is continually testing and tweaking and seeing how flavours can be improved. He has the knack of knowing instinctively how to fine-tune a recipe to make superlative ice cream. For example, he’s sourced a fiery stem ginger that gives a real kick.

Thinking back to your time at Tonbridge, who or what is most memorable to you now?

When I started, Peter Commings was my Housemaster. He was an admirable figure in my life, and I’m delighted to have been in touch with him again recently. He taught me so much in five years, effectively being my surrogate father. Apart from my parents, I would say he is the most significant adult figure in my life, and I’ve passed things on to my own children that he taught me. Looking back, what Peter taught me, and the lifelong friendships I made at Ferox, are the most significant relationships and memories from my time at Tonbridge ●