Features

Just because a witness has lied once does not mean they will always be lying, argues Deborah Gould, who explains the new Guidelines issued after the collapse of the Stafford Case  

In May 2011 the trial of Operation Chalice began at Stafford Crown Court only to collapse 16 weeks later. The first of a string of similar multi-handed trials, the indictment charged counts of sexual abuse, traffi cking, “grooming” and prostitution of numerous teenage girls. 

Thomas Ogg explains how to navigate the route safely.  

Not many barristers have opened a Free School, but I’m one of them: I’m chair of governors of the East London Science School, which opened in September 2013. Consequently, I have a good idea of the potential legal pitfalls of setting up a free school, and the extent to which this will generate work for lawyers. 

Dexter Dias QC examines the lessons the UK can learn from US mass incarceration and prison education.  

The cull, when it finally came, was brutal. With a single stroke of his pen, Bill Clinton both signed the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act 1994 and eviscerated US prison education, cutting off the $200 million “Pell Grants” that funded it. Within a year, from there being 350 educational programmes in America’s penal institutions, there were less than a dozen. 

Shakespeare’s Globe actors were joined by Members of Gray’s Inn for a special staged reading of Supposes, written in 1556 by George Gascoigne, a fellow Gray’s Inn Member. The rarely played drama returned to the Hall in which it was first performed. James Wallace, the director, and Master Roger Eastman, one of the barrister/actors, reflect on the day.  

The chance to do the very first play written in English prose in the actual building where it was first performed doesn’t come around too often. That play, Supposes, is: “A Comedy written in the Italian tongue by Ludovico Ariosto, Englished by George Gascoigne of The Honourable Society of Gray’s Inn, Esquire, and there presented.” It was acted by lawyers in 1566 in the same Hall to which, 447 years later on 3 November 2013, Shakespeare’s Globe brought its Read Not Dead on the road project. Joining the professional actors were four current Gray’s members, who bravely took the stage at 3pm for a fully staged script-in-hand performance after only beginning rehearsals at 10am. 

Job title 

Barrister, Thomas Bingham Chambers 

Thomas Bingham Chambers is a newly formed common law set specialising in civil litigation, crime, family and regulatory matters. 

Expect the Unexpected 

 One of the great joys of my life is returning home after a hard day’s gossiping in Chambers: shoes off, feet on the stool and a stiff gin and tonic. Or should I say “some gin with tonic”?  

A friend of mine at university once over-reached himself by taking out a girl called Jane, whose family was from the deepest Shires: the sort that disdains titles, never double-barrels and considers the Royal Family to be parvenus. He was invited for a weekend. Jane later told him in the Kardomah Café (she was a girl of simple tastes) that, after his departure, her mother had listed in order the ten social solecisms of his visit. Top of the list was that he had asked for “a gin and tonic” and not “some gin with tonic”. How we laughed when he told us until I next ordered a combination drink and heard myself asking for some whisky with soda.  

In this article David Murphy reviews the principal risks that collateralisation brings both to the parties involved and to the financial system as a whole.  

Collateral has a central role in the post-crisis financial system. Unsecured interbank markets have declined, so secured funding transactions whether private or with central banks have become the most important conduit of liquidity to the financial system. At the same time, collateral became a key feature of the post-crisis regulatory reforms: it will be mandatory for many bilateral OTC derivatives and is already required for centrally cleared transactions. 

On 28 October 2013 a trial began in Court 12 of the Central Criminal Court concerning the conduct of certain members of the British press. Two days later, the Privy Council approved a royal charter on press regulation.  

Last autumn two senior judges gave speeches concerning the relationship between law and morality, thus reigniting the embers of a debate which has flared up repeatedly over the last two centuries.  

A reflection on the way life for a barrister on the circuits used to be. 

Listening to (Lord) Jeremy Hutchinson on Desert Island Discs led me to recall life at independent criminal bar at its best. Anyone charged with a serious offence could walk into a High Street firm and any High Street firm could call on the services of Jeremy. The public money involved was well spent and never really questioned. Good quality advocates got to the real points in a case and addressed them directly. Time was saved. Justice is always done when high quality barristers oppose each other.