Nigel Lithman QC - Nothing Like the Truth: The Trial and Tribulations of a Criminal Judge

Praise for Nothing Like the Truth

A fascinating, funny and eye-opening memoir, offering a no-holds-barred account of the journey from baby barrister to Crown Court Judge. Weaving together anecdote and reflection, Nigel Lithman QC writes with compelling candour and wit, while never forgetting the most important quality in a judge humanity. I simply could not put this book down

The Secret Barrister

Witty and delivered in highly readable light-touch prose, Nothing Like the Truth in fact delivers perhaps the most truthful account of a criminal lawyers life I have read

Matthew Hall, author, screenwriter
and creator of Keeping Faith

Guilty of producing a very entertaining account of life as a criminal law barrister and judge

Lord Pannick QC

As funny as John Mortimer

G.F. Newman, author, screenwriter
and creator of Judge John Deed

Nigel Lithman QC somehow manages to make the law funny, interesting and vaguely sexy which is quite an achievement

Tracy-Ann Oberman, actress and broadcaster

Fact or fiction, its fascinating

Jenny Eclair, comedian and author

A unique and compelling mix of memoir and philosophical treatise on the nature of justice Hilarious and harrowing. A must-read book that is as timely as it is fascinating

Tony Kent, author of Killer Intent series

First published in 2021 by Nigel Lithman

Copyright Nigel Lithman 2021

The moral right of Nigel Lithman to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying, recording or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers.

ISBN 978-1-913532-72-7

Also available as an ebook
ISBN 978-1-913532-73-4

Typeset by seagulls.net
Cover design by Jack Smyth
Project management by whitefox
Printed and bound by TJ Books

This book is dedicated to:

My parents, Dr Leslie Lithman and Ethel Imber
Lithman, who set me on the right path.

My wife Debbie, the loveliest and smartest person
I know, and William, Daniel and Edward,
who are a wonderful part of my life.

The oath in Court:

The evidence I shall give shall be the truth,
the whole truth and nothing but the truth

Will it? I doubt it.

The time is ten minutes to quiche and chips. I am sitting on the Bench in Luton Crown Court noting the Defendants evidence, when two thoughts enter my head:

1. Im hungry.
2. I dont believe a word youre saying.

The Defendant had been stopped at Luton airport, where his suitcase had been rummaged by customs. Two pairs of undies and a rather dubious beige suit attracted mere disdain.

The suitcase had a false bottom, like the one the Defendant is currently arguing. It contained a kilo of cocaine, wrapped in cling film and plastic, which was met with rather less disdain and ultimately led to this trial. No fingerprints or DNA were found on the wrapper. The Defendant had protested his ignorance to the police in interview, and is now repeating it straight-faced, on oath, to the Jury.

I have no idea how that got there, I just know I didnt put it there.

I look at him, thinking: I dont believe you and I havent believed you since the prosecution first told the Jury about it.

With five minutes to lunch, I ask myself different questions: Why not? and Why do I think he is lying?

My mind drifts back thirty-eight years, to long before I was a Judge.

As a young barrister, representing a person in identical circumstances, I took this line in my closing speech: Members of the Jury, of a hundred people charged with this offence, a hundred will tell you they were ignorant of the cases contents. Let us say ninety-nine are lying. After all, what else can they say? That leaves one person who is telling you the truth. Your problem is finding the one. How do you know this is not the one? If it just may be this one, you must acquit.

More often than not they returned a verdict that effectively said: We agree. But its not this one. Guilty.

And yet here I am again, now on the Bench, saying to myself: Its not this one.

Why not? After a lifetime in the criminal justice system, at the Bar and on the Bench, is this my default position? Was it always so?

After lunch with a Diet Coke (which, by the way, doesnt seem to be working), I come back into court and let the Jury decide if this man is the special one. Apparently, he isnt.

It was not the first time Id concerned myself with the same issue.

I dont know what you call a group of old barristers Queens Counsel all. Some might say old farts, the more erudite will say narcissists. About seven years ago, I was one of such a group entering the Old Bailey robing room, the place where we change our robes and put on our wigs before going into battle for our respective teams, some prosecuting, some defending, in what are commonly regarded as the most serious crimes of the day, be it murder, rape or terrorism.

At the time I had been doing the job a mere fortyone years. I had risen through the ranks, spending twenty-one years as a junior barrister and then twenty as Queens Counsel (a Silk) before I was to become a Judge. Four decades is not a particularly long time, its just that we dont live very long. It passes in what seems like the blink of an eye. In fact, forty-one years is only regarded as a long time because once we take off the years in which we dribble, both at the beginning and the end of our lives, forty-one makes up most of the rest.

On that day, and for no given reason, this question entered my head: of the hundreds of people I had represented over the years, how many were truly innocent? No, I dont mean how many people I had represented were acquitted by a Jury or discharged by the Judge for some technical reason. I mean, how many were actually innocent?

I had a good strike rate. Id won a lot of cases. Of course, Id lost lots too and had some score draws (Jury couldnt agree).

Ive always said that a good advocate wins all the winners, loses all the losers but wins those on the borderline. Some barristers think they are wonderful; what that says about them as people Im not sure. I am embarrassed to mention that during one eighteen-month period representing a series of people charged with murder, the majority were acquitted. Does that mean they were all innocent? Only they and their maker know that. But Paddy Power would give me very short odds that that is the case.

Asked to approximate how many I thought were actually innocent, of all those Ive represented throughout four decades, I seriously thought the answer might be such that I could count them on my fingers, toes, nose and any other handy appendage.

Now I must immediately concede I could be up to 100 per cent wrong, and I might need many more appendages.

It is a difficult question to answer for the following reasons. If this was a philosophical treatise, I would spend time considering the nature of innocence. It is not. I dont just mean partly innocent, I mean completely innocent. Some Defendants will spend their whole time persuading you that a part of the prosecution case is a lie. Their argument continues, if part is a lie, the whole might be a lie and an acquittal must follow.