Features

As the Ministry of Justice sifts through responses to the Legal Aid Consultation, Toby Craig looks at some of the dissenting voices  

Eight weeks, 56 days, 1,344 hours. 80,640 minutes...you get the picture. That was how long the Ministry of Justice allowed for responses to be formulated to its deeply controversial Consultation Paper, Transforming Legal Aid . Critics say the proposals will fundamentally alter and undermine the criminal justice system in this jurisdiction alongside further and substantial changes to civil legal aid. 

A minute’s silence for the passing of the legal aid sytem 

June 10, 2013: “Nothing’s sacred to those devils.” Batman (Adam West) 

Short of bumping into the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse on the way to the Bailey, things could not feel more eschatological. Arriving, I spotted what looked like a huge number of nicotine-addicted barristers congregating on the pavement outside the entrance. Hetty Briar-Pitt, my junior, barred my entry and forced me, like a shy horse, into their ranks. It dawned on me then that this was, in fact, a minute’s silence for the passing of the legal aid system. 

The criminality underpinning the Telford and Oxford grooming trials has put child sexual exploitation in the news. Hugh Davies OBE QC and Madeleine Wolfe examine the United Kingdom’s record in protecting vulnerable children abroad from systematic sexual abuse  

No serious commentator doubts either (i) that the sexual abuse of children internationally is a substantial industry; or (ii) that the United Kingdom has positive human rights obligations to children to prevent harm from British nationals who represent a significant risk of such extra-territorial offending. The Sexual Offences Act 2003 (“SOA”) presently legislates for three forms of civil prevention order: Sexual Offences Prevention Orders (“SOPOs”); Foreign Travel Orders (“FTOs”); and Risk of Sexual Harm Orders (“RoSHOs”). A recent multi-agency ACPO commissioned review, led by one of the authors of this article, concluded that this statutory regime is failing adequately to prevent sexual harm to children both abroad and within the UK. It proposes a new form of order, specifically relating to children, better to prevent such offending. 

International child exploitation
It is intrinsically difficult to quantify the nature and scale of the industry of international child sexual exploitation. On any view of the figures they are appalling. Children are rendered little more than tradable commodities in many countries. The United Nations estimates that as many as two million children are employed in the commercial industry of sexual abuse internationally, and (for example) that 35% of Cambodia’s 55,000 commercial sex workers are under 16 years’ old; the figure for Brazil, host country for the next World Cup and Olympics, is “as high as 500,000”; ECPAT (an international NGO campaigning against child sexual exploitation and trafficking) estimates the figure in Thailand alone at between 200-250,000, including children trafficked from Burma, Laos and China specifically for that purpose. There is equivalent data for many other countries, and hundreds of thousands are trafficked internally and internationally for exploitation annually. 

Job title: Silk and Head of the Criminal Team 

New Park Court Chambers is a large and well-established set of Chambers comprising 94 barristers in Leeds and Newcastle, including 9 QCs, specialising in criminal, civil and family law.  

You are described in the leading directories as ‘an ascending star’, and were described in The Times  in connection with the Suarz/Evra case as one of the country’s leading criminal lawyers. What do you credit your success to?
Hard work and good luck. In the five years before I took silk I was fortunate to be led by a number of exceptional QCs. In particular, I was led by Robert Smith QC in a series of long cases of considerable complexity and importance. Of all of the advocates I have encountered, he has the highest standards and I learnt a great deal from him. This period was effectively a second pupillage and set me on course for my own career in silk. 

Women leave the Bar in large numbers after having children. The Bar Nursery is a first step towards addressing this problem. Kate Grange, Jess Connors and Victoria Butler-Cole examine the background.  

It’s been five years since the Bar Nursery Association was established and over that time there have been some considerable highs and lows in the campaign to establish suitable childcare facilities for members of the Bar close to the Inns of Court. 

With responses to the Ministry of Justice’s consultation paper on legal aid flowing in, Toby Craig considers the changing landscape  

The only game in town
This month’s WW will be landing on desks just as the finishing touches are being applied to a large number of responses to the Ministry of Justice’s Transforming Legal Aid  consultation paper. One could be forgiven for thinking that was the only game in town. One could also be forgiven for hoping that the various consultation responses are read with more care and attention. It hasn’t always been the case. 

Toby Craig examines whether corporate social responsibility is just good business or is part of the Bar’s DNA?  

Very few people love lawyers, or will even countenance their existence... until they need one. It is a profession in need of some public rehabilitation. Sadly, the bright idea of ‘International be Kind to Lawyers Day’, was also the date chosen by the Ministry of Justice on which to announce yet more legal aid cuts. Maybe the Lord Chancellor did not get the memo. It’s true, lawyers are probably held in slightly higher esteem than our friends in the banking community and, say, tax collectors, but they have never been the most popular professionals. In some ways, that’s odd. There is great affection for the traditions of the Bar. Its traditions, and sense of theatre, help, in part, to fuel a brand which is recognised and respected all over the world, perhaps more than it is here. But, whilst the family GP or a teacher in a local school is instinctively seen as a positive role model, there seems to be a more natural suspicion of the bewigged and hidden world of the Bar. 

Schona Jolly explains the Bar Human Rights Committee’s concerns over the Bangladesh War Crimes Verdicts.  

In the dying days of Bangladesh’s 1971 War of Independence, in which liberation from what was then known as West Pakistan was sought, grave and widespread atrocities were committed. Estimates of the killings range from about half a million up to three million people, but there is no reliable data. Over forty years later, the attempts to bring much-sought justice for those atrocities are being mired by the controversies surrounding the International Criminal Tribunal (ICT) which was set up in 2010 to try Bangladeshis accused of being complicit in those crimes. 

Nigel Pascoe QC reviews the recent staging of Judgement at Nuremberg at the Bridewell Theatre to which lawyer-actors brought their forensic skills  

Judging the Judges is a diverting philosophical exercise. The Bar are at it every day. But in the third Nuremberg trial it happened with a vengeance when four Nazi Judges faced an American panel of three. Was it to be victor’s justice and the least they deserved? Or were there real defences in law which could be deployed? 

In recent years, Judgement at Nuremberg  has been staged at the Tricycle Theatre as well as other lawyer’s productions, including 12 Angry Men, Inherit The Wind  and To Kill a Mockingbird ; all directed very successfully by Sally Knyvette. Any lawyer-actors would love the chance to bring their forensic skills to a professional venue and professionally directed, they can bring authentic attack and real flair to these classic court-room dramas: so again with this new staging at the Bridewell Theatre. The great virtue of this compelling play is that without ever losing its moral core, it is pretty even-handed in examining the issues and particularly who knew what of the Holocaust in legal and civilian circles. It reaches the right conclusion, but in the process, also allows us to follow the fall of a great but flawed German judge. Unlike his co-defendants whom he despises, this Judge has the moral courage to condemn himself. In dramatic terms then, a stonking great speech for a lawyer-actor and a marvellous central part - the fair and modest small-town American Judge. 

Sadness that the dumbing down of the office of Lord Chancellor has inevitably led to a lack of protection for an independent legal profession 

May 6, 2013: “I won’t insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.” William F. Buckley, Jr.  

When I was a sixth-former, I decided to try for Oxford. In those days, there was an Entrance Examination. My Headmaster suggested I practise the General Paper. The first question was “Might you as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb?” Entirely missing the point, I wrote what I thought to be a humorous piece about the virtues of capital punishment. It was returned sporting a “Delta” and the comment: “You’re in the Sixth Form now. Grow Up.”