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Confessions of a Barrister. Russell Winnock
Читать онлайн.Название Confessions of a Barrister
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9780008100339
Автор произведения Russell Winnock
Жанр Биографии и Мемуары
Издательство HarperCollins
2 2. Donoghue v Stevenson (1932) – you might not have heard of this case, but you will certainly have felt its implications. This case established the international concept of negligence, and introduced the legal principle that in some circumstances we owe others a duty of care. Mrs Donoghue bought a bottle of ginger beer, drank it, fell ill, then discovered that there was a dead snail inside the bottle. She sued the drinks manufacturer, one Stevenson, and eventually won on appeal to the House of Lords, with the court declaring by a majority that the drinks manufacturer owed a ‘duty of care’ to the ultimate consumer – a judgement that has kept hundreds of lawyers in work ever since.
3 3. The Trial of OJ Simpson (1995) – another one involving celebs and sex. Former American football star and film actor OJ Simpson was accused of shooting dead his wife and her lover. The evidence appeared overwhelming, but ace attorney Johnnie Cochrane managed to convince the jury after a year and a half long trial that there was reasonable doubt.
4 4. The Trial of Jeremy Thorpe (1978) – back to the Old Bailey, and the trial that made the name and reputation of George Carman QC. Jeremy Thorpe, the leader of the Liberal Party at the time, stood accused of conspiring to murder his ‘gay lover’, Norman Scott, after Scott’s dog was shot in rather suspicious circumstances. Carman (with a bit of help from the trial Judge) managed to persuade the jury that there was nothing in it.
5 5. Roe v Wade (1973) – a landmark American Supreme Court trial that established that a woman has the right to control over her own body, including the right to abort a foetus. Even four decades later, this one still causes ructions amongst the American people as the right-wing and liberal politicians continue to argue about its merits.
6 6. Brown v The Board of Education (1954) – staying with the American Supreme Court, this time a landmark civil rights ruling that it was unconstitutional for children to be segregated according to their racial background after the parents of black schoolchildren in Topeka, Kansas, challenged the racist policy that allowed discrimination amongst schoolchildren. (And quite bloody right too!)
7 7. The Trial of Thomas More (1535) – there are quite a few grisly trials to choose from around the time of the Reformation, but my personal favourite is the trial of Sir Thomas More. More, former Lord Chancellor and a formidable scholar and philosopher, was accused and tried for High Treason. During the trial he was cross-examined by no less than six of the country’s most esteemed legal and constitutional minds as they tried to get him to vow allegiance to the King – he didn’t budge, and despite more than holding his own against the onslaught of questions, they convicted him and chopped off his head.
8 8. The Trial of Oscar Pistorius (2014) – Pistorius, the double amputee superstar of South African sport, shot his beautiful model girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in the middle of the night on Valentine’s Day 2013. Oscar’s defence was that he ‘Thought she was an intruder.’ Perhaps surprisingly, you might think, the Judge agreed and he was found not guilty of murder, but guilty of ‘culpable homicide’. So according to the Judge it was all just a horrible accident.
9 9. The Nuremberg Trials (1946) – described as ‘the greatest trial in history’, 21 senior Nazis in the dock, charged with various war crimes committed during the Second World War, ranging from the execution of prisoners of war to genocide. Hartley Shawcross and Robert Jackson prosecuting, and an indictment as long as an airport paperback. One year and one month later, twelve were sentenced to death, three were acquitted and the rest – the ones who hadn’t committed suicide, that is – were given various prison sentences.
10 10. The Trial of Jesus Christ (approx. 33AD) – a bit lacking in the niceties of courtroom procedure, but a significant trial nonetheless. According to the New Testament, Christ is charged with blasphemy by the Sanhedrin (an assembly consisting of at least 23 of the cleverest men who would determine the application of Jewish law) in Jerusalem. To this charge, he doesn’t appear to mount much of a defence. Indeed, by asserting that he was ‘the Son of God’, he probably made things a bit worse. After being convicted, as we all know too well, Jesus was taken to Pontius Pilate, the Roman Governor, who upheld the demands for crucifixion. I sometimes wonder how things would have panned out if the trial had taken place in one of our Magistrates Courts, with Jesus being represented by the duty solicitor – ‘Your Worships, my client, Mr Christ, intends to plead not guilty to the charge. His defence? Er, he’ll be running the “I am the rightful Messiah Son of God” defence. What do you mean that’s not a defence in law?’
Dinners, beers and ‘what would you do if you weren’t a barrister?’
Most Friday nights after court I meet up with Ed and Johnny, two old university mates, at the Erskine Pub near chambers. After a few pints and the stress of the week waned, we reminisce about our happy student days. We all studied law at Leeds – oh how wonderful it was to be a student: Thursday nights at the Students’ Union Bar dancing to Oasis and Blur and trying to tap off with girls, failing, then watching the fights break out at the kebab shop and trying desperately hard not to look like a student, because the students usually got their heads kicked in. Days missing lectures, and trying to understand contract law and dreaming about our futures as brilliant barristers.
Most of the students on our course wanted to be solicitors, so we were drawn together as aspiring barristers. In our final year we came down to our Inn in London together to do our dinners. Dinners, or dining and the Inns, are another little secret of the strange world of the Bar. It works like this: once you have completed your law degree and decided you want to become a barrister, you have to join an Inn. There are four Inns: Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Gray’s Inn and Lincoln’s Inn.
Once you have joined your Inn you have to do ‘dining’. That is, you have to go to your Inn and have a meal in the company of other barristers and student barristers. It doesn’t matter how brilliant you are, it doesn’t matter if you are Plutarch, Petrocelli or Perry bleeding Mason, if you haven’t done the dinners, you won’t get called to the Bar and you won’t be able to practise as a barrister. And it’s not just one dinner, oh no, there are twelve dinners. So there you have it, a pre-requisite to becoming a barrister is eating food.
Ed, Johnny and I decided to join Gray’s Inn. I can’t remember why now, I think the dinners were probably the cheapest. Once we had joined the Inn, every couple of weeks we put on our best clobber and went down to London. I have to say that at first it was exciting to go down to the Great Hall of Gray’s Inn. You got to wear a robe and, occasionally, sit next to a proper Queen’s Counsel or High Court Judge, who were, on the whole, quite kind and encouraging. One even offered me snuff (which caused a bit of confusion as I thought he was offering me marijuana, which probably isn’t a mistake I’d make now).
The three of us were state-school boys; my parents were old-fashioned socialists. I wasn’t used to this kind of pomp and ceremony, so wearing your best suit, listening to Latin prayers, drinking too much wine and port and then going on for a few beers at a London club with girls called Prunella, Jemima and Beatrice was new and fun.
But, some time around dinner number six, things started to become a bit tiresome. There are only so many times you can listen to some crusty old Silk tell you how difficult it is for young barristers; or even worse, some chinless, limp-coiffed, posh boy called Giles tell you he has got six different offers of pupilage and he’s not quite sure which one to take, when you’ve been turned down by every set you’ve applied to.
Still, it was a rite of passage and afterwards the three of us moved to London together and shared a flat in Catford. It was great. We were all in different chambers with different people but we came back each night and sat around drinking, eating takeaway curries and talking about our days, our cases and our clients. We felt we’d