The Secret Barrister - Nothing But the Truth

This book would not exist without the immense talents of Kris Doyle, Gillian Stern, Andrea Henry, Chloe May, Fraser Crichton and everybody at Picador whose skill and diligence has ensured that the book that exited the editing process is of a significantly higher quality than the half-baked manuscript presented as an alleged first draft. Their continued patience through the considerable complications posed by working with an anonymous author is appreciated more than I can express. If it is any consolation, I am assured that I am even more inconvenient to live with.

On that note, a permanent debt of gratitude is owed to my agent, Chris Wellbelove, and his tireless assistant Emily Fish, for being the glue that holds my manic second existence together.

Mary Aspinall-Miles has brought not only eternal kindness and wisdom, but has once again trawled through drafts of my witterings to offer invaluable notes and suggestions. Im sorry I left some of the swearing in.

To those friends and colleagues whose stories and cases I have purloined or bastardised, thank you. As a wise man once said, it is easier to get forgiveness than permission (although you need neither if nobody ever finds out).

And special thanks, of course, to Alan, for everything he taught me, even if 90 per cent of it is unprintable. If he recognises himself in this book, I hope he forgives the liberties and appreciates the effort I have taken in trying to disguise him.

Finally, most importantly, and in the vain, self-serving hope that words can atone for deeds, I thank my family, without whose own sacrifices none of this wild ego trip would have been possible. I love you. Please dont leave me.

To all those whose love, support and wisdom got me to where I am today.

I hold each of you personally responsible.

The Secret Barrister is a junior barrister specialising in criminal law. They write for many publications and are the author of the award-winning blog of the same name. They were named Independent Blogger of the Year at the Editorial Intelligence Comment Awards (2016 and 2017) and Legal Personality of the Year at the Law Society Awards (2018).

Their first book, The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How Its Broken, was a Sunday Times number-one bestseller and spent more than a year in the top-ten bestseller list. It won the Books Are My Bag Non-Fiction Award 2018 and was shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year and the Specsavers Non-Fiction Book of the Year 2018. Their second book, Fake Law: The Truth About Justice in an Age of Lies, was an instant Sunday Times top-ten bestseller on publication.

I take off my wig and sink into the sofa in the Crown Court witness suite. The ninety-year-old burglary victim sitting across from me looks up from his newspaper and beams a grandfatherly smile. Is there good news? Is it not going to be a trial? Is my burglar pleading guilty?

I stare into his trusting blue eyes and swallow.

The thing is... I begin, as I try to formulate my next sentence. The thing is, the defendant is saying, and as the prosecution barrister I have to ask you... She says that she knows you. I pause and look across to the Crown Prosecution Service caseworker for moral support. Professionally.

His smile doesnt waver as he crooks a wispy eyebrow. Well, Im afraid I very much doubt that Ive been out of the watchmaking world for twenty years!

No no, I cough nervously. Her profession. Not yours.

Im terribly sorry, but Im not sure I follow.

I take a deep breath. The defendant says that she didnt break into your house and steal from you, but that you invited her in for... services. And the money she took was payment for... rendering those services.

He remains unruffled. Im afraid not Id never seen that lady in my life until I caught her hopping out of my window with my wallet.

Hes going to make me say it. The kindly, snow-haired, twinkly-eyed bastard is going to make me say it.

The thing is, Mr Grace, she can give particular detail about your... she says that you have... apparently in order for her...

The police officer to my left comes to my rescue. Tom, she says that every time she blew you, you asked her to help take off your false leg. And shes happy to tell the jury all about it.

We all sit in appalling silence for what feels like a decade, nobody making eye contact. Eventually, Tom speaks.

I think, upon reflection, that there might have been a misunderstanding. If its all the same to you, Ill be on my way. Please pass on my apologies to Natasha.

As he shuffles out of the witness suite, the police officer and I lock eyes. Neither of us has told him the defendants first name.

I dont know what I expected a career as a barrister to be like. As an eighteen-year-old embarking upon a law degree, I knew very little about the nuts and bolts of our criminal justice system. Certainly it never occurred to me that the role might entail days like the above, sweating beneath my thick black gown in an unventilated witness room as the image of the nonagenarian Mr Grace expectantly detaching his prosthetic limb was seared for ever onto my subconscious.

But one thing I did know about the justice system was how I believed it should work. My views about criminal justice, in particular, were held more fervently than any others from a relatively early age. And while I dont know how usual this is for an adolescent, surveys regularly tell us that adults, at least, feel more strongly about crime than they do on almost any other social or political issue. Its perhaps unsurprising. Criminal acts, by definition, are wrongdoings against all of us they are the most serious breaches of our social code, the ones which cannot be left for individuals to privately litigate, but which call for the intervention of the state to dispense justice on behalf of us all. It is inevitable that criminal justice stirs interest and excites emotion, and it is only right as a matter of democracy that we all have our say on a system which we collectively own. In which we all hold a stake.

Which brings us to this book. Because, while we will look, through charting my own bumbling journey, at what our justice system is like from the inside, I do recognise that anonymous autobiography, if not strictly an oxymoron, does border sufficiently on the ridiculous for anybody claiming to write such a thing to be justly and righteously kicked in the shins. Allow me, someone who wont even give you their name, to tell you anonymised details of my professional life and charge you for the privilege has a vibe which, even for a lawyer, feels exploitative.

So, more than that, I want to talk about what we understand by justice. What we expect our criminal justice system to do. And how well it does that. In doing so, Id like to consider the following set of propositions:

• The justice system is too soft on criminals
• We should have a little less understanding, and a lot more deterrence
• Judges are woolly, out-of-touch liberals pushing a left-wing agenda and making us all less safe
• We waste too much money on ambulance-chasing lawyers, criminals and illegal immigrants
• The rights of criminals are put before the rights of victims and the law-abiding public
• Criminal justice needs less political correctness, bureaucracy and paperwork, and more bobbies on the beat and good British common sense

These are views that I hear a lot when I speak to people about justice. They chime with much of what we read in the popular press, and echo sentiments that we hear from the politicians with the loudest microphones. They are views that I have spent nearly a decade valiantly and self-righteously railing against, from my beginnings as an anonymous, rabbit-avatared Twitter account in 2015, through to blogs, newspaper articles, and, somewhat improbably, two whole books.