Thread by @BarristerSecret

Some Sunday morning #FakeLaw to deconstruct, courtesy of our regular guest star, The Sun.

Buckle up, kids [THREAD]

1. Firstly, this man did not “spend £165,000”. That is a lie. This was the overall cost of legal aid in long-running serious criminal proceedings. This is like saying someone who receives a NHS heart transplant is “spends” the cost of the operation. It’s nonsensical.

2. In any case, readers are invited to conclude that £165,000 is too much to spend on this case.

But the journalist has not bothered to tell you any of the context that you would need to even *begin* to assess whether that cost is too high, too low, or about right. Such as...

3. How much of that figure includes VAT, which goes to the Treasury? How many lawyers & support staff worked on the case? What work was involved? How many hours, days, months went into this extremely serious murder case where the defendant was facing a potential life sentence?

4. £165k sounds like a lot out of context. But the figures are gross, not net. Solicitors’ firms have staff to pay, business costs, rent, insurance, tax etc. As do barristers. When all that is broken down, what is the actual *profit* for these professionals?

5. What is the hourly rate? How does that compare to the hourly rate of other professionals? What does this journalist suggest *should* be paid to the most highly experienced professionals in their fields dealing with the most serious criminal cases?

6. Because this is is what it boils down to: if you are going to run a “news” story decrying the cost of legal aid, you should be able to give full context to show why it’s too much, and what sum would have been reasonable.

Of course, The Sun doesn’t.

7. The deceit is astounding. Just look at this paragraph. He “hired a legal team costing £108,388”. Like he leafed through a catalogue and picked the most expensive.

Whereas the truth is that legal aid rates are fixed by the government far below market rates.

8. If you want to see what top criminal lawyers can earn on the open market, well...

The Sun’s publisher News Corp was happy to pay £60m in private fees to defend five journalists accused of phone hacking.

That’s an average of £12m each, and nobody was accused of murder.

9. But when it comes to the public, The Sun and News Corp doesn’t think that if you are accused of a crime that you deserve to have the same right to a defence as its journalists.

The hypocrisy would be jaw-dropping if it weren’t so depressingly families.

10. The real problem, the article invites us to conclude, is that these were bad people, and that is wrong for taxpayer money to be spent on ensuring that bad people are fairly convicted.

It is not. It is the hallmark of a civilised society.

11. Here’s why: because everybody - you, me, the people we fear and hate most - has the right to a defence if accused of a crime.

Everybody is entitled to a fair trial under the rule of law.

And here’s a thing: sometimes accused people are innocent. And are found not guilty.

12. That’s why legal aid matters. Of course the amount paid from the public purse has to be reasonable. The average take-home pay of a criminal barrister is £27k pa. A solicitor is less. The huge headline sums, without context, distort reality.

You are not being given the facts.

13. So, for those at the back:

🛑Anyone accused of a criminal offence has the right to a fair trial.

🛑It’s not a fair trial if the prosecution has lawyers and the accused does not.

🛑Legal aid rates are fixed by government well below market rates

14. The reason you aren’t given any of this context for this headline is because that would ruin the story. It would be, when all is broken down, wholly unremarkable.

Instead, the reader is invited to resent the mere principle of an accused person having legal representation.

15. This attitude is ignorant, exploitative and dangerous. It is also prevalent. This thread is copied from responses to near-identical stories earlier this year. I make no apology for this - as long as they copy and paste trash #FakeLaw, I’ll copy and paste my rebuttals.

16. I don’t care if I am stuck on repeat. These #LegalAidLies have been allowed to flourish unchecked for years. Stories like these are like fake health cure articles - they cause irreparable damage not only to public understanding, but to people’s lives. They must be challenged.

17. The lies you are told about legal aid - what it’s for, what it costs, why we need it - are the reason governments have been able to remove legal aid from the most vulnerable in society without any political consequence.

Don’t let them lie to you.

18. And the inevitable plug. Buy it, borrow it, lend it, force everyone you know to read it. #LegalAidLies has a whole chapter.

It’s only because of our unfamiliarity with the legal system that they can lie to us with impunity.

Don’t let them lie to you.

#FakeLaw

https://twitter.com/barristersecret/status/1303994924787027973