[1] During the Second World War, he served with the Union Defence Force as an artillery officer, losing a leg at the Battle of El Alamein.
He was called to the bar in 1947 and practiced in Johannesburg and Grahamstown until 1955, when he moved to Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia.
He briefly went into politics, and acted as deputy speaker of the Legislative Assembly for a time.
A member of the United Federal Party, Pittman was on its left, and introduced a motion in 1959 to allow the admission of non-whites to the Southern Rhodesia public service.
In 1980, he tried the ZANU-PF minister Edgar Tekere and his bodyguards for murder: Pittman voted to convict, but he was overruled by his two assessors.