Confessions of a Barrister

‘Yes.’ His voice is deep and gravelly without a hint of reasonable doubt.

‘Do you find the defendant, Brian Fordyke, guilty or not guilty of the theft of a marital aid from Mr Nookies Adult Emporium?’

‘Guilty.’

Damn.

‘And that is the verdict of you all?’

‘It is.’

I hear my client let out a little sigh from the dock as the Judge replaces his glasses and looks disapprovingly at me. Why is he looking at me? I didn’t steal the bloody marital aid; and why do we have to call it a marital aid? I mean, who uses that term – no one! Why can’t we just say dildo?

‘Mr Russell Winnock,’ says the Judge.

I rise obediently to my feet. ‘Your Honour?’ I reply.

‘Your client has been found guilty on the most overwhelming of evidence.’

‘Well … Yes.’ I try to put up some kind of counter proposition to this, but the Judge, a ruthless and often confused old codger by the name of Marmaduke, is having none of it.

‘In fact, Mr Winnock, this case shouldn’t have even been in my court.’

‘Well, Your Honour …’ I’m stumbling now, looking for words, but nothing except air leaves my mouth.

‘This is the type of case that should have been heard by …’ he pauses ‘… the Magistrates.’ His Honour, Judge Marmaduke, spits out the words ‘the Magistrates’ as though he were talking about a group of lepers.

‘Who advised this man –’ he points in the direction of the now guilty Brian Fordyke as he shouts at me – ‘to elect to come to the Crown Court rather than,’ another pause, ‘the Magistrates?’

‘Er, me, Your Honour. That was me.’

‘You, Winnock!’

‘Yes, Your Honour.’

‘Why the devil did you do that? You’ve wasted thousands of pounds of taxpayers’ money.’

‘Well, Your Honour, I believe that all men and women should have the chance to be tried by their peers.’

‘Well, your client was tried by his peers.’

‘Yes, Your Honour.’

‘And they convicted him.’

‘They did, Your Honour.’

‘Of the theft of this, this …’ he is gesticulating wildly, his eyes bulging. Finally, without finishing his sentence, and with his face a coronary shade of incensed purple, he turns to my client. ‘Brian Fordyke, stand – you will go to prison for fifteen years.’

There is a gasp from around the courtroom – even the jury gasp. I jump up to my feet: ‘Your Honour, fifteen years? The dildo was only worth eight quid.’

‘Alright then, fifteen weeks,’ spits Marmaduke, and with that he flounces out of the court.

The jury look at me, I look at them and the little old lady turns to the woman next to her and says in a loud stage whisper – ‘God love him.’

I sigh, it wasn’t meant to be like this, my life as a criminal barrister. I had imagined it so very differently. I had imagined that I would be revered in court, loved by clients and solicitors, respected by Judges and opponents. I had imagined a life of serious, headline-worthy cases, trials at the Old Bailey, interviews with Joshua Rosenberg, where I would effortlessly say things like, ‘Joshua, no, bless you, your interpretation of the meaning of the decision in the case of Galbraith is quite wrong, let me help you out.’ And then there’s the money, I had always imagined that being a barrister would lend itself to having a few quid. I had imagined having a fast red sports car, a penthouse flat and an extensive fine wine collection. I imagined having handmade suits, a little place in France and a posh girlfriend who looked good in jodhpurs.

In short, when I decided to study law at Leeds University, some thirteen years ago, I imagined that I would become successful, powerful, rich, highly sexed and, yes, probably a bit of a tosser. Sadly, having been a barrister for nine years and having just turned 31, only one of those ambitions has come to fruition – and it isn’t the sex bit.

Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s not that I don’t enjoy being a barrister – I truly love my job (well, most of it) and there are parts of the job that I would never want to give up. I still see it as a privilege, I still see it as performing an important function; I quite like my clients, even the pervs and weirdos; I enjoy the cut and thrust of a trial and I even like the old-fashioned ways, the pomp and ceremony, wigs and gowns and bowing, and the peculiar language that is unique to courts. I like all that, but, in truth, being a criminal barrister today, after all the cuts and the changes and closures, is a bit like arriving at a party at the point when everyone is already getting into a taxi or passed out on the couch – fun’s been had, but I ain’t getting any of it.

This book is about all of it – the fun and the pomp, the seriousness and the stress. It is about the weirdos and Judges and clients, the opponents you respect and the opponents you despise. It is about, I hope, my attempts to do my best and let you into a few little secrets along the way. It is about being a barrister.

How do you defend someone who you know is guilty? (#u7407b055-1fb3-57c7-85a1-d259f451bd1e)

As a criminal barrister, the first question I get asked when people find out what I do for a living is ‘How do you defend someone who you know is guilty?’ It’s probably the first question you thought of when you picked up this book. Well, I’ll tell you.

After Brian Fordyke’s trial, I went down to see him – it’s what you do. He was sat alone in his cell. It was small and grey, with nothing in it but a table and two chairs – it is the place a person is put before a big part of their life is taken from them – their freedom – and it’s every bit as soulless as you would imagine. On the table someone had scratched the words, ‘Marmaduke is a Cock-Knocker’ – which seemed entirely apposite. I sat down opposite my rather forlorn and puzzled-looking client; thankfully, I didn’t detect any bitterness being directed towards me – which was something at least. I considered cracking a little joke – maybe, suggesting that on the occasion of him being convicted of his fiftieth offence of shoplifting, the police and courts might commemorate the occasion and have a whip round and present him with a small engraved tankard to mark the occasion – but I thought better of it.

That is the worst part of the job: when someone has put their faith in you, entrusted you to maintain their liberty, defend their name, and you lose. Because you both lose – but the only difference is, you’ll be going home tonight.

‘Well, Brian,’ I said, trying to muster up a bit of a smile, ‘for a second there I thought the Judge had gone mad. Fifteen years, pfft.’

He smiled weakly at me. ‘Do you know, Russ, on this occasion, I actually wasn’t guilty.’

‘I know, mate.’ I added, ‘But, the CCTV wasn’t very good for us, was it?’

He shrugged in acknowledgement of the utterly damning Close Circuit Television footage that showed him in HD quality fiddling with his flies, before placing the offending marital aid down his trousers and making to leave the shop.

‘And, I suppose, if you put yourself in the jury’s position,’ I continued, ‘they were never going to believe that you were simply attempting to compare the, er, marital aid, to your own tackle.’

He shrugged again and it hit me that actually, if I had been a juror I would probably have convicted him as well.

But that isn’t my job, I am not there to decide if someone is guilty or innocent. That is why the question ‘How do you defend someone who you know is guilty?’ – which every barrister is asked by everyone they ever speak to at every dinner party or family gathering they ever attend – is so perplexing. We don’t know if the person is guilty or not, we only do what our clients tell us. And if they tell us that they were sticking a dildo down their trousers because they were buying a saucy present for the Mrs and wanted to compare the present to their own appendage to ensure that they didn’t get anything too big, then that’s the defence which we will place before a jury, even if it’s probably a load of cobblers. Because all of us, whether we like it or not, are innocent until proven guilty. So it’s not a dilemma at all, it’s very simple – if someone tells us that they are not guilty, even after we’ve told them that the evidence is strong, even after we have told them that they will be making things far worse for themselves if they have a trial, then we have to take them at their word, our own feelings and opinions are irrelevant. We put forward the points as best we can, and let others decide about guilt or innocence, right or wrong. That is our job.

I shook hands with Brian Fordyke. He’d been to prison before, for him fifteen weeks offered no fear and no surprises. He would come out after about six weeks, his craving for whatever drug he had been using would probably return, his desire to go straight probably forgotten, and before long, he’d be back in court, waiting for the buzzer and the jury’s verdict. And then, because it would almost certainly be ‘guilty’, he would be back in prison for another couple of months. That was his life.

And me, well, I limped back to chambers to prepare myself for the next brief, the next case – in the hope that, perhaps, it would be more exciting, more successful and more lucrative than the last one. Perhaps it would be the case that would make my name.

Chambers (#ulink_a8bbe70c-1206-5371-9d81-0d29a1c5131a)

I’m not proud of this, but by the time I get back to my chambers, Gray’s Buildings, after a trial, I’ve usually forgotten about my client. I know that sounds callous and cold, but the brain of a barrister has a habit of jettisoning things quite quickly – it has to, otherwise we’d end up demented, our every thought haunted by the ghosts of cases long gone. Yes, okay, there are occasions when you wake up in the middle of the night, sit bolt upright and think – ‘Why didn’t I just ask that question?’ or, actually, more likely, ‘Why did I have to ask that one last stupid question?’ But usually we go to court, we do our cases, we come back from court, and somewhere in between leaving court and arriving at our next destination, the gruesome details of the last client become lost in the canopy of our minds.

They’re funny things, chambers. They don’t really seem to belong to the modern age. Despite the desperate attempts of some of the big City sets to employ practice managers and IT consultants and PR gurus, they almost all still have a sniff of the eighteenth century about them, when a man could conduct a court case whilst simultaneously eating a hearty dinner and enjoying a flagon of ale before going on to enjoy the delights of Madame Pomfrey’s girls on Petticoat Lane.

Gray’s Buildings is tucked down a back street and about a ten-minute walk from the City Crown Court. It has seen better days and as a building is remarkable only for its 1970s pebble-dash and a massive oak door that is painted gallows black. Next door is a sandwich shop, across the road is the Erskine Pub and next door to that is the super-duper, ultra-modern Extempar Chambers – motto ‘We Don’t Judge, We Just Care.’ Extempar Chambers is the future, or so we are told. They have about 150 members, all of whom have a First Class degree from Cambridge or come from a long line of High Court Judges. They have fifteen clerks who all appear to be former models and a liveried van to deliver briefs to your doorstep. They have corporate days out, hunting and white-water rafting, they even have a motion sensor espresso machine (whatever that is). They have contracts with multinational companies, an interactive website and a career plan for each member.

But, surely all of that counts for nothing when you’re faced with the likes of Brian Fordyke – then, all the motion sensor espresso machines and smiley clerks in the world can’t compensate for the ability to talk and act like a normal human being.