Confessions of a Barrister

The City Magistrates Court (#litres_trial_promo)

The Magistrates Court in the country (#litres_trial_promo)

The fall of Kenny McCloud (#litres_trial_promo)

STRIKE! (#litres_trial_promo)

Football, violence, and the case of Archie Finch (#litres_trial_promo)

The unwilling criminal (#litres_trial_promo)

Wigs and gowns (#litres_trial_promo)

Murder (#litres_trial_promo)

Facebook (#litres_trial_promo)

The case of the sizzling Gypsy sisters (#litres_trial_promo)

Bail (#litres_trial_promo)

Silk (#litres_trial_promo)

The ten greatest Crown Courts in the land (#litres_trial_promo)

The Court of Appeal and the case of R v J (a minor) (#litres_trial_promo)

The case against Tasha Roux (#litres_trial_promo)

Girls (#litres_trial_promo)

Touting and solicitor’s wars (#litres_trial_promo)

The case according to Tasha Roux (#litres_trial_promo)

Self-defence and politicians (#litres_trial_promo)

Consent (#litres_trial_promo)

Domestic violence and the case of Carl and Leanne Stafford (#litres_trial_promo)

Bradley Edwards and the ‘Furry Fuckers’ (#litres_trial_promo)

The story of Charlie Parkman QC (#litres_trial_promo)

The queue at HMP Stoneywood and the case of Sam Wheldon (#litres_trial_promo)

Disclosure (#litres_trial_promo)

Goodbye to Johnny Richardson and hello to Lilly Spencer (#litres_trial_promo)

Bad character (#litres_trial_promo)

The trial of Tasha Roux day one – the robing room bullies (#litres_trial_promo)

The trial of Tasha Roux day two – the jury (#litres_trial_promo)

Roger Fish’s opening speech (#litres_trial_promo)

The witnesses for the Crown (#litres_trial_promo)

Dinner with Kelly Backworth (#litres_trial_promo)

Tasha gives her evidence (#litres_trial_promo)

Charlie’s speech (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

Disclaimer (#u7407b055-1fb3-57c7-85a1-d259f451bd1e)

This book is dedicated to the Judges, barristers, solicitors, court staff, clients and criminals who have inspired the stories. All names and events have been changed, but each story and event has its genesis in some case or incident that has actually happened.

Brian Fordyke (#u7407b055-1fb3-57c7-85a1-d259f451bd1e)

The buzzer. The buzzer of doom. The buzzer that indicates that the jury have reached a verdict and are now ready to come back into the courtroom to deliver it. Guilty or not guilty, that’s what the buzzer means. And as soon as I hear it, the pace of my heart starts to quicken and I feel the prickle of sweat forming under my wig.

I look behind me to the dock where my client, a pockmarked and serially dishonest rogue and drug addict by the name of Brian Fordyke, sits, charged with shoplifting. The trial has not gone particularly well for him.

I’m in court sixteen of the City Crown Court. It’s a court where odd things happen, far away from the gaze of the media and the high-profile cases. It is tucked away, ancient, dusty and largely ignored. It is where I ply my trade as a barrister. In court sixteen the buzzer is followed by the footsteps – heavy, foreboding footsteps on the wooden floor that leads from the jury room to the courtroom: clomp, clomp, clomp.

And with every footstep, the verdict ‘guilty’ or ‘not guilty’, happiness or sadness, freedom or incarceration is brought a clomping step nearer.

The door from the jury room to the courtroom opens and in they walk. The usual vengeful suspects: my jury, Brian Fordyke’s jury. There’s the little old lady who has sucked Everton Mints religiously throughout the trial; the bloke with the tattoos who sat and stared utterly oblivious to my attempts to persuade him of Brian Fordyke’s innocence; the middle-class man who has worn a suit throughout; the hippy lady in the flowing blouse who chose to affirm rather than swear on the Bible (always nice to get a couple of liberals on the jury); and the pretty girl to whom I found myself paying far too much attention during my closing speech. These and the seven others clomp towards their place in the jury box and sit down.

At this point I watch them carefully. I know that if they look towards me or the dock then they will acquit my client, if they don’t, it’s curtains.

They look straight ahead, steely-faced. There isn’t so much as a glimpse in my direction or towards the dock. This isn’t good.

The foreman is the man with tattoos – for a second I try to persuade myself that this might be a good thing, that the man with the tattoos might have a bit of a colourful history himself, but I know I’m grasping at greasy straws. I know what is about to happen only too well.

The Clerk of the Court gets up and clears her throat: ‘Will the foreman of the jury please stand.’ Tattoo man gets up.

‘Have the jury reached a verdict upon which you are all agreed?’