My application for tenancy in Chambers has been successful. I am now a tenant barrister. This is the culmination of many years of effort, and uncertainty, and I'm very happy to have finally arrived.

The last half an hour has been rather scary. I am preparing for my two trials tomorrow. One of the trials involves playing a CD recording of telephone calls to the police in which one can allegedly hear the sound of a door being kicked in. I say allegedly because upon inserting the CD into the DVD drive of my iBook the disc first refused to play ( Read more... )

I've been working so hard recently. I've had trials almost every day for two weeks and I'm a little bit exhausted. Next week I have five days of trial, including a two day trial in Huntingdon, wherever that is. Weirdest trial of the week was me prosecuting a chap for assault. My victim's evidence went like this ( Read more... )

Today I'm off to prosecute a pair of assaults that took place in a care home. The Defendant has a mental age of 8 and can't understand why he has to keep coming to court. My two principal witnesses are a schizophrenic with severe short term memory loss, and someone suffering from tardive dyskinesia and schizophrenia. There is also a 16 year old ( Read more... )

I had an entertaining morning in Coalville Magistrates' Court. The snow was coming down as I drove the 15 miles to get there. Not even the snow could make Coalville attractive. I was prosecuting the trial of a man who had been charged with bilking petrol (making off without payment). He maintained his plea of not guilty despite the following ( Read more... )

Sometimes, ideology is such a drag. How is it that the most powerful nation is ruled by people who are so genuinely naive as to believe that some nations are good and others evil? Surely, they must realise that nations will endeavour to act in their own self-interest? Or do the hawks in the US government really think that the Iranians are like ( Read more... )

I've been having a pretty good week. Things have been nice and busy at work, although nobody seems to have paid me any money for what seems like an age. I had a very lucky near-miss on Tuesday: as the most junior person around, if anyone else wants to swap a Crown Prosecution list with me in order to get a more convenient location, then they can ( Read more... )

Today I have been a towering ball of rage. I was prosecuting an 80 year old man for exposing himself to a bunch of early teen girls. I got all the way through the evidence, which was all done via video link to the Court. They had to go through the details of what happened, be questioned by the defence solicitor and told that they were making it all ( Read more... )

I was planning to go and see the White Rose Movement this evening at the Charlotte, but of course I did nothing by way of obtaining tickets. This morning, when I was on the train back from Hinckley, I happened to read that there was a competition for tickets in the Metro. I sent in a text message and was later called to say that I have won two ( Read more... )

Does anyone read Spanish well enough to give me a rough translation of the text below ( Read more... )