Joanna is politer than I am going to be.

For the Justice Secretary - a former barrister - to suggest that being wrongly accused of a crime and imprisoned for three years is just like “scraping your knee”, should be a resignation matter.

@DavidLammy owes the public an apology.

https://twitter.com/joanna__hardy/status/2030761306601423129

Every time you read one of these disingenuous - no, strike that - outrageously dishonest propaganda pieces from @DavidLammy and @sarahsackman, remember that the freedoms they wish to curtail are designed to protect people wrongly accused of criminal offences.

Here is a list of reasons why some of my hearings and trials this year have been delayed and kicked off into the long grass, stuck in our record court backlog. Serious allegations which will now be tried *years* after the event. 🧵👇 1. The defendant not being produced at court from prison. 🚚

A classic. It happens due to the private contractors simply not bothering, knowing that the contracts negotiated by government include no meaningful penalty for failure.

Trials every day in every court are affected.

There is understandable concern following this news report.

Let’s try to break down what has happened. 🧵

https://twitter.com/lukasdegutis/status/1952846412003316073

As ever, the usual disclaimer applies. This is an explanation of the law. Not a defence. If that distinction is beyond you, for your own welfare turn back now.

Something that the Lucy Connolly case has illustrated - something that is well known to those who work in criminal justice but often overlooked in public debate - is the complexity and nuance in the lives and characters of people appearing before the courts.

A short 🧵👇 Public discussion is obsessed with othering “criminals”.

Bad, irredeemable, monstrous and deserving of as much punishment as the courts can give.

Mitigation is merely lawyerly excuses. They’ve done wrong, ergo they should be locked up.

Why might there be a delay in the details of a police investigation being made public?

Well, many reasons. None of which relate to a conspiracy or a “cover-up”.

Let’s take a quick look🧵👇 First there are the practicalities of modern investigations, particularly in serious and complex cases where the police are reviewing multiple digital devices, such as mobile phones and computers.

Why did Huw Edwards avoid prison?

Is this evidence of “two-tier justice”?

Let’s take a quick look. 🧵

TLDR: This is an entirely expected sentence for offences of this type.

https://twitter.com/bbcbreaking/status/1835650426785439977

Huw Edwards pleaded guilty to “making” 41 indecent photographs of a child.

The first point to note is that “making” is misleading - the offence was possessing them on a computer, rather than creating or recording the images. The law is grossly confusing in this area.

It is regrettable that whoever wrote this thread did so in apparent ignorance of what the law actually says.

It is really rather wildly misleading.

[THREAD 🧵]

https://twitter.com/defendourjuries/status/1817900023046185381

The thread offers a hypothetical of a person breaking a car window to rescue a child, only to find themselves charged with criminal damage and prevented by the judge from mentioning this critical circumstance to the jury.

Just like climate activists.

Only…it’s false.

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.

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: 🧵



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.

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

https://twitter.com/lbc/status/1687003945950998528

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.

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.

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.

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.

***PADDINGTON 2 LIVE-TWEET: THE RULES***

This lecture explores the Christmas(ish) classic Paddington 2 through the lens of English & Welsh law.

Contributions are welcome, but I'm perfectly prepared to tweet the entire film to a wall of embarrassed silence.

#LegalLiveTweet This paper considers, inter alia, how the journey of one Peruvian bear through the criminal justice system might have been different had he and his associates all been subject to the law of England and Wales.

It is both an insult and a mark of cowardice when defendants refuse to attend court for their sentence.

But what is actually being suggested here?

I can only see only two options.

And Labour’s policy is unclear. 🧵

https://twitter.com/stevereedmp/status/1603041735403507713

Labour excitedly told The Sun that they would “force offenders to literally face justice”. Does this mean *literally* dragging unwilling defendants into the dock? Aside from the safety issues, what if the defendant decides to disrupt proceedings?

thesun.co.uk/news/18278348/…

Councillor Barrett claimed that a barrister wearing a t-shirt with a (non-sexual) slogan exemplified a “cultural problem at the criminal bar”.

When asked to explain, he posted an unrelated report of sexual abuse and accused me of endorsing “a culture of sexual objectification.”

https://twitter.com/sbarrettbar/status/1602782696077492224

I wouldn’t normally engage with this sort of silliness, but Councillor Barrett - he of the reliably inaccurate pro-government “legal analyses” in The Spectator - is making false claims capable of seriously damaging reputations, which cannot be ignored.

Quite right.

As Andrew’s employer has shown, the correct mode of address for judges is “Enemy of The People”. In the meantime, this “PC Wokery” sounds like a dangerous cad. I hope his sergeant yanks him into line before he infects anybody else.

Ooh, shall we talk “irresponsible”, @DominicRaab?

Because I wonder if our definitions differ.

Irresponsible, to me, is supporting the chronic defunding of criminal justice during your entire spell as a Parliamentarian.

And of course, there’s more. 🧵

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi… Irresponsible is cutting 21,000 police officers and a quarter of Crown Prosecutors. Meaning it often takes around two years - at least - simply for a suspect to be charged.

Meaning that potentially dangerous people are free to roam the streets.

@DominicRaab

Dominic Raab:

The Greatest Hits 💽💽💽

In his most recent spell as Justice Secretary, @DominicRaab achieved the following: 🧵 1. Dominic Raab created a record backlog in the Crown Courts by continuing his predecessors’ chronic underfunding of the criminal justice system.

His “plan” to reduce the backlog was ridiculed by fellow MPs as “meagre”, as it would still leave people waiting years for a trial.

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1501565869507420170

An illustration of the crisis in criminal justice:

We are working to capacity. All available judges, courts & barristers working flat out

In the past two weeks, I have had two trials adjourned for “lack of court time”

Each case is from 2019 and has been adjourned TWICE before. This has nothing to do with barristers’ industrial action. It is not because of Covid.

It is due to a chronic lack of resourcing, which has seen courts sold off and underused, insufficient judges recruited and a quarter of criminal barristers forced out of the profession.

For those who have asked, after careful consideration, I have decided to vote NO to the government's offer to the Criminal Bar.

My reasons for doing so are no better nor worthy of note than anybody else's, but what is Twitter without solipsism? So here goes. 1. The government's own independent review urged an immediate 15% increase as a *bare minimum* back in November 2021. It was intended to be a large, above-inflation increase to reflect the perilous position of the profession, the attrition rate, and the 28% cut.