The Secret Barrister Profile picture
Sep 13, 2020 16 tweets 6 min read Read on X
“Seeing justice truly done” is an interesting soundbite.

Is it, as this incoherent, sub-sixth-form essay rant suggests, only about locking more people up for longer?

Or does “justice truly done” mean a little more?

[THREAD]
Justice truly done means people not being forced to wait years for trials due to the government’s long-term refusal to resource the courts, which has caused a huge backlog (that they are falsely trying to blame on Covid). lawgazette.co.uk/news/new-figur…
Justice truly done means abolishing the Innocence Tax, by which the government refuses you legal aid, forces you to pay privately for your legal defence team and then, when you’re acquitted, refuses to reimburse you, leaving you penniless. thetimes.co.uk/article/ditch-…
Justice truly done means stopping selling off the courts. Over 150 courts have been closed down since 2010. Some people - defendants, witnesses, victims - now have to endure a 5-hour round trip on public transport to reach their “local” court. thetimes.co.uk/article/court-…
Justice truly done means making courts that are still open fit for human use. Basics such as running water, working lifts, non-leaking roofs, heating & functioning toilets don’t exist in many courts, left to rot by ministers who don’t have to visit them. ft.com/content/88b5f3…
Justice truly done means stopping the abuse of “Release Under Investigation” (RUI), brought in after the govt changed the laws on police bail to win cheap headlines. RUI sees suspects released for years while investigations plod at a snail’s pace. lawgazette.co.uk/news/police-fi…
Justice truly done means funding digital forensic investigation units so that it does not take over 12 months to examine a mobile phone, which causes enormous delays before files can even be sent to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. policeprofessional.com/news/forensic-…
Justice truly done means reversing the c£1bn cut to prisons that has resulted in dangerous understaffing & overcrowding, a collapse in training and education, record violence and self-harm, rampant drug abuse, infestation and “not a single establishment safe to hold children.”
Justice truly done means finding the £195m required to fund Rape Crisis Centres properly so that thousands of survivors don’t find themselves cut adrift with no support rapecrisis.org.uk/news/latest-ne…
Justice truly done means addressing the problems that followed the government’s closure of the Forensic Science Service in 2012, which led to private providers and police laboratories failing to meet basic standards, jeopardising criminal investigations. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-385278…
Justice truly done means comprehensively reviewing the magistrates’ court system, which hands unqualified volunteers the power to send the rest of us to prison for up to a year, in conditions of sausage factory justice.
Justice truly done means reversing the debilitating funding cuts to the Criminal Cases Review Commission, the statutory body responsible for investigating miscarriages of justice. theguardian.com/law/2018/sep/0…
Justice truly done means reversing the cuts to youth services (up to 91% in some local authorities) which the All Party Parliamentary Group on Knife Crime suggested are linked to the increase in knife crime. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-481763…
Justice truly done means addressing mental health provision. The criminal justice system, and especially prisons, are crammed with people who should not be there. Criminal justice does not exist in a vacuum. The whole system must do better. justice.org.uk/people-mental-…
Justice truly done means improving understanding of the criminal justice system through public legal education. And ensuring that as PM you don’t worsen the problem by spreading #FakeLaw. Speak truth. Even if you have to plagiarise a legal blogger to do it newsweek.com/boris-johnson-…
Justice truly done requires honesty about where the problems in criminal justice lie.

It means not treating the public like fools by pretending that criminal justice is nothing more than longer prison sentences.

Justice is so much more.

Don’t let them lie to you.

#FakeLaw

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More from @BarristerSecret

Jan 9
As the issue of compensation for miscarriages of justice is rightly in the news, it’s timely to note that in 2014, the government changed the law to make it all but impossible for people wrongly convicted and imprisoned to claim compensation.
Chris Grayling and Theresa May led the charge to deprive the wrongly convicted of compensation, changing the rules so that those people had to effectively prove their innocence - an impossible standard to meet.

The details are in Stories of The Law & How It’s Broken.

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When this spiteful non-compensation scheme was challenged in the courts, the current crop of politicians - those who are now positioning themselves as champions of the wrongfully convicted - fought all the way to uphold it.

amp.theguardian.com/law/2018/may/0…
Read 4 tweets
Dec 3, 2023
Can highly recommend this piece in today’s Sunday Times if you’re looking for a facile misunderstanding of what a barrister actually does.

If Mr Syed had bothered to speak to a barrister, or indulge in the most cursory research, he would have learned at least two things: 🧵

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1. 90% of a barrister’s career is spent on making decisions. Advising on courses of action, of legal risk, future consequences, assessing evidence and making split-second judgement calls (both in and out of court) that can make an irrevocable decision to a person’s life. Image
2. It’s an obvious one, and an old favourite, but given that it seems to take Mr Syed by surprise:

BARRISTERS ARE NOT THEIR CLIENTS.

We ask questions in court and test evidence, on behalf of whoever instructs us, because that is our job.

We are not expressing personal views. Image
Read 4 tweets
Aug 3, 2023
Ah, hello old friend.

It’s been a while.

Let’s hop back on the horse: Why this story about legal aid is as misleading as it is brainless.

[THREAD] 🧵

#LegalAidLies
Readers are invited to conclude that £100,000 (£100,028, to be precise) is too much to spend on this very serious case, in which an MP was murdered. A “ridiculous amount of money”, we’re reliably told by Conservative MP @nigelmills.

Well let’s see. Image
The first teeny, tiny point - and I really am being picky - is that, despite @nigelmills confidently asserting that the defendant “admitted the killing”, that’s not actually true. Not really.

Because the same article tells us that he denied murder and had a 7-day trial. Image
Read 22 tweets
Jul 24, 2023
There is something I've been reluctant to talk about.

I didn't ever want to really talk about it. But the question has been asked, and if one person is thinking it, others may be too.

So I'll address it head on:

How is Taylor Swift's legal analysis in "no body, no crime"? 🧵
🎵He did it, he did it🎵

She says as the sirens blare. Nothing like a quick rush to judgement before literally *any* evidence has been called, eh Swifty?

But let's allow for the fact that you're worried about your friend, and look at some of the evidential principles in play.
First though, house rules:

Unfamiliar with the full lyrics? Then take the time to listen *in full* before going any further.

If you haven't read the sentencing remarks, you're in no position to comment.

Read 17 tweets
Mar 25, 2023
A final (for now) word on my colleagues who don’t and can’t prosecute criminal cases, but are performatively declaring that they *won’t* prosecute certain types of cases.

This second paragraph vividly illustrates the danger to which they are exposing us criminal practitioners.
The whole point of the cab rank rule is that it provides the answer to the question: “How can you represent [X]?”, when X is an unpopular client or cause.

The minute we are perceived to be picking and choosing between “good” and “bad” defendants, it all breaks down.
It means - as the activists explicitly state - that other barristers can be targeted. “Your colleagues refuse to represent X, so why are you?”

It aligns us personally with our clients.

It exposes those of us who defend & prosecute the most dangerous criminals to very real risk
Read 4 tweets
Mar 22, 2023
There’s a reason that criminal defence lawyers will tell you that the defence case is usually at its strongest before the defendant gives evidence.
Always good fun to watch a leading silk's poker face as their client sets fire to his own trousers in the witness box.
Pannick's expression as his client starts shouting at the committee. Well worth £220k.
Read 5 tweets

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