Distinctive characteristic of painful experience in court (6)
I believe the answer is:
cachet
'distinctive characteristic' is the definition.
'cachet' can be an answer for 'characteristic' (thesaurus). I'm not sure about the 'distinctive' bit.
'painful experience in court' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'painful' could be 'ache' (I've seen this before) and 'ache' is located in the answer.
'court' could be 'ct' (abbreviation used in road names) and 'ct' is found in the leftover letters.
This accounts for all the letters.
This explanation may well be incorrect...
'of' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for cachet that I've seen before include "Social distinction" , "Distinguishing mark or seal" , "Mark of approval" , "Distinguishing feature" , "Kind of prestige, from France" .)