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The Secret Barrister Profile picture
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11 Feb, 4 tweets, 1 min read
There’s an intriguing overlap on here between those complaining that lockdown restrictions on liberty are a barbaric assault on human rights and those who in ordinary times insist that being locked in a 4.5m sq prison cell for 23 hours a day is a “holiday camp”.
“THEY HAVE TVs IN THEIR 4.5 METRE SQUARED BOXES IN WHICH THEY DEFECATE IN FRONT OF VIOLENT STRANGERS, HOW IS THAT ANY SORT OF PUNISHMENT?” etc etc.
Maybe - just maybe - the punitive effect of loss of liberty *in itself* might be a little more widely understood once we emerge from all of this.
And a big wave to all of those who wilfully misunderstand the point and clamour in the replies to shout WE HAVEN’T COMMITTED A CRIME. The point is that loss of liberty is punitive and oppressive in ways that it is difficult to appreciate until you experience it.

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More from @BarristerSecret

The Secret Barrister Profile picture
8 Feb
We are seeing this more and more.

Huge delays in criminal justice, caused *not* by Covid but by government cuts, mean that courts are forced to deal with offenders - including serious assaults - more leniently.

The government owes victims an apology.

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9…
And less of this #FakeLaw please. Covid has not been around for 18 months. The delays in criminal justice have been around for years, and we’re getting worse long before Covid.

Don’t let them lie to you.
For those asking why delay means more lenient sentences, it is set out in the Sentencing Guidelines as a mitigating feature. It should incentivise a “tough on crime” government to properly resource the system to reduce delays.

This government has deliberately increased them.
Read 7 tweets
The Secret Barrister Profile picture
30 Jan
Barristers are not our cases. We do not choose our clients because we believe in their cause. If we receive instructions to represent in legal proceedings, we are ethically obliged to act.

Critics of @DinahRoseQC misunderstand the function of the Bar.
lawgazette.co.uk/news/lawyers-r…
It is the same misunderstanding that causes the Home Secretary to attack “activist lawyers” for representing people in immigration cases; the Prime Minister to deride criminal barristers as “lefty do-gooders”.

We take the cases we are given. That way nobody goes unrepresented.
Barristers have a duty not to refuse a case because of its objectionable nature or conduct/beliefs of the client.

If we refused to act for unpopular clients because of public or political pressure, it would be professional misconduct and the rule of law would quickly crumble.
Read 6 tweets
The Secret Barrister Profile picture
27 Jan
Thoroughly depressing to see Labour buy into the government myth that uprooting our criminal justice system is the way to deal with the trial backlog.

Properly funding the criminal justice system is the way to deal with the backlog.
As readers of my books will know, I’m a jury sceptic. I think it’s probably the best system we have, but I believe it is unduly opaque and capable of improvement. I’m not ideologically fervent about a jury of twelve.

But.
We should not be uprooting fundaments of the justice system without careful research into the impact.

For instance.

David Lammy’s 2017 review identified jury trial as “one stage in the criminal justice system where B[A]ME groups do not face persistent disproportionality.”
Read 9 tweets
The Secret Barrister Profile picture
20 Jan
I am currently prosecuting sexual allegations made by children in 2019. The earliest trial dates are in 2022.

This is not because of Covid. It is because you have cut every part of criminal justice to the bone.

Your audacity is shameless.

Fund the justice system properly.
It takes the police years to investigate allegations, because of your government’s cuts to police budgets.

It takes digital investigators years to analyse mobile phones and computers because of your cuts to forensic science and refusal to heed warnings gov.uk/government/new…
Suspects are left in limbo for years, “released under investigation” because your botched reform of bail laws - designed to catch headlines - had consequences that anybody could have foreseen. Cases drift as underresourced police forces are spread thin. lawgazette.co.uk/news/release-u…
Read 9 tweets
The Secret Barrister Profile picture
19 Jan
It’s encouraging that the crisis in criminal justice is getting the coverage it urgently needs, but once more for those at the back:

THE DELAYS IN THE CRIMINAL COURTS WERE CAUSED BY YEARS OF UNDERFUNDING, *NOT* BY COVID.

Covid has just made things worse. bbc.co.uk/news/uk-557121…
Journalists must not let the government evade culpability for the state of the criminal justice system by blaming Covid.

We have been warning about the huge delays, enormous backlogs and chronic underfunding for *years*. Right up until Covid came along.
Every time we warned, we urged, we begged, we wrote books - trying to draw attention to what government was doing to criminal justice, we were ignored.

Instead the public was treated to foaming nonsense about “soft sentences” and protecting statues.

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-557121…
Read 6 tweets
The Secret Barrister Profile picture
12 Jan
It is very disappointing to hear the chair of the @MagsAssoc giving evidence to Parliament and suggesting that junior barristers are lying about their experiences of Covid in the magistrates’ courts.

This, I regret to say, exemplifies the problem.

parliamentlive.tv/event/index/6e…
When presented with first person accounts of barristers being compelled to attend magistrates’ courts in person for no good reason, the chair of @MagsAssoc first blames me(!), and then says it is someone “enjoying themselves at our expense on Twitter”.

This is appalling.
By all means use your time in front of the Justice Committee to complain about anonymous Twitter rabbits, but don’t you dare accuse my colleagues of lying, @MagsAssoc. You owe them a public apology.
Read 4 tweets

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