Category Archives: Contemplations

Televising sentencing remarks is a gimmick that has not been thought through

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As somebody who spends more time than is healthy banging the drum for better public understanding of the justice system, today’s announcement from the Ministry of Justice that sentence hearings in the Crown Court will be televised should be right up my wheelhouse.

The proposal sidesteps any worries about a rush to an Americanised celebrification of court participants by providing that only the sentencing remarks made by the judge will be filmed and broadcast; victims, witnesses, Probation, caseworkers, court staff, lawyers and the attending public will not appear in shot. This follows the broadcasting in recent years of proceedings in the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, and is on its face a show of ministerial faith in the principle of transparency and open justice. Which is very much A Good Thing.

So why am I concerned?

There is the obvious observation that striking broadcasting deals is an odd priority for a Ministry overseeing a justice system in a state of collapse. The courtrooms that haven’t been flogged off (half of all magistrates’ courts have been sold since 2010) are in the main decrepit, crumbling hovels with broken heating, perennially out-of-order lifts, peeling walls, sporadic running water, holes in the ceilings and clogged toilets, wholly unfit to service the people who work there, let alone the public compelled to attend for what is already one of the most stressful days of their lives. Legal aid has been slashed so deep that there are hardly any new entrants into criminal law, with the Innocence Tax – the indignity inflicted on those people wrongly accused of a crime, refused legal aid and, when acquitted, forced to foot the bill for their legal costs – now a permanent fixture. Crown Court sitting days have been cut, leading to delays of years between an offence occurring and criminal proceedings concluding, prolonging the agony of all involved and increasing the likelihood of miscarriages of justice as memories fade and witnesses lose faith. The police and the Crown Prosecution Service still don’t have anywhere near the resources required to discharge their basic functions. In short, there is plenty that you might imagine a government which was serious about criminal justice would want to achieve as its first order of business.

But even if this initiative is simply something shiny to cynically wave at journalists in the hope of distracting from the real problems, it doesn’t follow that it’s necessarily a bad idea. If it has the effect of increasing public awareness of the sentencing process, that is an evident good.

The problem is that I don’t think it will do that.

The difficulty is in the compromise that has had to be reached to avoid deterring victims and witnesses from attending court and engaging with the criminal process. Victims often attend sentence hearings, and have the right to read their Victim Personal Statements aloud in court. It is plainly right that they not be dissuaded from doing so by a fear of having their most intimate trauma broadcast or retweeted to the nation. So it is that the decision has been taken not to broadcast the prosecution advocate opening the facts at the sentence hearing (during which the Victim Personal Statement will be read), nor the defence advocate advancing mitigation, but solely the judge’s sentencing remarks.

However sentencing remarks, while essential for anybody wishing to report or pass comment on a criminal case, are not by themselves sufficient to give a comprehensive understanding of what has happened in a case. A sentence hearing is a dynamic process. The advocates will advance often-conflicting submissions as to how particular case law or Sentencing Guidelines apply – whether a certain aggravating or mitigating feature is present, for instance, whether an offence is a “Category 1” or “Category 2” offence, whether a victim is “particularly vulnerable” or just plain “vulnerable”, whether a defendant is “dangerous” and so liable for a particular kind of sentence. The judge will usually interrogate these submissions, challenging the advocates to justify their position.

There will be mitigation advanced, which will usually include reference to detailed Pre-Sentence, psychiatric or psychological reports, as well as character references, letters from the family and so forth. Again, the relevance and significance of this will vary from case to case, but it all forms part of the picture.

And the thing about sentencing remarks is that they don’t – can’t – rehearse everything that has been said in a sentence hearing. They only set out the headlines. They should, plainly, explain why a particular sentence has been passed, but they don’t include all the evidence that was heard at trial, all the arguments that were advanced by the prosecution and defence during sentence, or a full examination of the law.

And sentencing remarks are set to become even less detailed thanks to a decision of the Court of Appeal last year, which appears to have completely bypassed our justice ministers. In the case of R v Chin-Charles [2019] EWCA Crim 1140, the Court of Appeal went out of its way to criticise judges who produce what in the eyes of the Court of Appeal are overly detailed sentencing remarks:

  • There has been a tendency in recent years, understandable but unnecessary, to craft sentencing remarks with the eye to the Court of Appeal rather than the primary audience identified by Parliament. This has led to longer and longer remarks. It is not unusual to find the equivalent of a judgment, with extensive citation of authority, detailed discussion of the relevant guidelines, expansive recitation of the various arguments advanced and a comprehensive explanation of the resolution of factual and legal issues. This should be avoided. The Court of Appeal always has the Crown’s opening and any note for the sentencing hearing, and a record of mitigation advanced. In many cases both sides have produced notes for sentencing. The Court of Appeal will have the pre-sentence report. None should be exhaustively rehearsed in sentencing remarks and, if mentioned, only briefly. 
  • The task of the Court of Appeal is not to review the reasons of the sentencing judge as the Administrative Court would a public law decision. Its task is to determine whether the sentence imposed was manifestly excessive or wrong in principle. Arguments advanced on behalf of appellants that this or that point was not mentioned in sentencing remarks, with an invitation to infer that the judge ignored it, rarely prosper. Judges take into account all that has been placed before them and advanced in open court and in many instances, have presided over a trial. The Court of Appeal is well aware of that. 
  • On occasion authority is cited by parties. Save in exceptional circumstances sentencing remarks need not refer to it. 
  • The sentence must be located in the guidelines. In general, the court need only identify the category in which a count sits by reference to harm and culpability, the consequent starting point and range, the fact that adjustments have been made to reflect aggravating and mitigating factors, where appropriate credit for plea (and amount of credit) and the conclusion. It may be necessary briefly to set out what prompts the court to settle on culpability and harm, but only where the conclusion is not obvious or was in issue, and also to explain why the court moved from the starting point.
  • Findings of fact should be announced without, in most cases, supporting narrative.
  • If in play, a finding of dangerousness contrary to statute must be recorded. Supporting facts should be set out only when essential to an understanding of the finding, not as a matter of course. 
  • Victim personal statements might merit brief reference (Criminal Practice Direction VII Sentencing F3d). Limited brief reference to the contents of reports will be apt only if essential to an understanding of the court’s decision.

For my part, sentencing remarks which cite the law, contain detailed discussion of the guidelines, recitation of the arguments and a comprehensive explanation as to how legal and factual issues in the case have been resolved are absolutely what are required to help the public understand why a judge has passed a particular sentence. This decision appears to have been made with an eye on reducing the workload of the Court of Appeal by trimming the number of pages they have to read on sentence appeals, and is in my view wholly at odds with the notion of sentencing as a public function. Sentencing remarks should be written like a judgment, for that is what they are: a judgment determining a person’s liberty.

Of course the Court of Appeal hearing an appeal has a transcript of the prosecution’s opening and the record of mitigation, as well as the reports, but the public watching a Crown Court judge pass sentence does not. And if – as is proposed – they are not to be shown any of that – no prosecution opening, no mitigation, no reports – and the judge is told that there should usually be no supporting narrative, that supporting facts should be set out “not as a matter of course” and that case law should only be referred to in “exceptional circumstances” – how on earth is the public going to be fully informed? How will the complexity of criminal sentencing – the delicate balancing exercise of competing aims and interests – be fully explained to a non-legal audience?

And so we have a perfect storm. Judges are now mandated by the Court of Appeal to include as little detail as possible in their sentencing remarks, while the government proposes to broadcast those remarks – and nothing more – in an alleged effort to enlighten the public.

We already see with regularity fully-explained sentencing remarks divorced from their context, misquoted or distorted by lazy reporters and special interest groups, and judges unfairly monstered as a consequence. The ability of anyone so inclined – from bad-faith editor to Twitter troll – to clip decontextualised video footage and circulate it virally to make a dishonest point about ‘soft sentencing’ or ‘loony judges’ is a modern reality. To increase the risk of misunderstanding by showing the public only a fraction of the process is a move at odds with full transparency.

A cynic might point to this government’s overt anti-judiciary agenda and suggest that, far from enhancing public faith in justice, this is a ploy designed to expose judges to the wrath of the partially-informed mob. But even if the Prime Minister’s judge-bashing is just unhappy coincidence, it is clear that at the very least there are obvious flaws in this plan which, in the true spirit of the Ministry of Justice, have not been thought through.

A letter to my younger pupil-self

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For this month’s Counsel Magazine, I have written a letter to my younger pupil-self, offering some words of advice that I wish I’d been given when starting life at the Criminal Bar.

The piece can be read here.

Guest post by Mukul Chawla QC: Reflections from my years at the independent Bar

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I am delighted and honoured to publish this guest post by Mukul Chawla QC. Many readers will know that, after 35 years at the independent Bar blazing trails that leave us mortal practitioners feeling very humbled indeed, Mukul is stepping down as Head of Chambers at Foundry Chambers (formerly 9-12 Bell Yard) for a new beginning in employed practice. Here, he offers some reflections on his time at the independent Bar and on the fate of the criminal justice system.

 

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What follows is a self-indulgent and personal reflection of my years at the independent Bar and my thoughts (which echo those more eloquently set out by others not least the owner of this blog page) of the present and future state of the Criminal Justice system. If that introduction is not enough to put you off, may I thank you in advance for taking the time to read this.

Three weeks ago, I concluded my final speech in a murder at the Central Criminal Court and was allowed to tell the jury at the end of it that, because of a longstanding previous engagement, I would not be able to return to the case.

The longstanding previous engagement was my leaving the independent Bar to join a firm of International lawyers in the City of London as a partner in its White Collar Crime team.  I have now been working in that role for three weeks and it has given me an opportunity to reflect on what I have left behind. At a time when my good friend Max Hill QC is about to take up the reins as Director of Public Prosecutions, I thought it was an appropriate moment to put down some of my thoughts on what the past thirty five years have meant to me and my fears for the future of the Criminal Justice system.

I was called to the Bar by Grays Inn in July 1983, a moderately fresh faced 22 year old who had played too much rugby and done too little academic work to achieve anything approaching decent grades. Like many of my contemporaries my academic achievements would not even get me an interview at any moderate set of Chambers today. In those days my university and Bar School tuition fees were paid for in full by the local authority. I did not have to pay for the privilege of undertaking pupillage but neither was there any pupillage award. Its equivalent, so far as my pupil master was concerned, was his complete insistence that while I worked with him, I did not pay for lunch or the near daily outings to wine bars around Fleet Street. My pupillage consisted of following my pupil master around various Crown Courts in London with occasional trips to the High Court and working on a variety of criminal and civil papers for him when we were not in court.

As it turned out I was incredibly lucky. When I got to my feet, I was invariably in court every day and often conducting several hearings each day. Most of my first five months on my feet were spent in the Magistrates Court but there were also plenty of appearances in County Courts and in Employment Tribunals.

Three weeks before my tenancy application was due to be considered, my clerks managed to miss a fixture for a senior tenant at Inner London Crown Court – a multi-handed heroin supply case. When I returned to chambers at 11am from a quick hearing at Bow Street Magistrates Court, my senior clerk handed me the papers tied with pink tape, gave me my taxi fare (you can tell how guilty he felt!) and sent me on my way to Inner London. The Judge was, I understand, incandescent before I arrived but took pity on me when I stammered my apologies for my late arrival. However, he was not sufficiently sympathetic to agree to adjourn the case to the following day so that the counsel who had been instructed could undertake the trial. He did, however, grudgingly allow me twenty minutes so that I could speak to my client. My client’s first words to me in the corridor outside court and in the hearing of my prosecutor and a number of my co-defending counsel were “I don’t want no fucking Paki defending me.” I gulped and explained that I was all he was going to get.

My first Crown Court trial had not started in the auspicious way that I had dreamt of. Our relationship never really improved. The next two weeks were spent in a haze of panic, sleeplessness and endless writing and crossing out questions to ask and points to make. I had one point in my favour. The police officer who interviewed my client had neglected to write down that he had cautioned him in accordance with the Judges Rules (this was pre PACE). The more he insisted that he had cautioned my client the sillier he looked. Wise words from one of my co-defending counsel prevailed upon me in that, while I had wanted to make this cross examination last hours so that I would be seen as the new Rumpole of the Bailey (or, at least of Inner London), I only needed to ask half a dozen questions before resuming my seat. In the event, after two weeks my client was acquitted (I still suspect that the Jury felt sorry for him because of his representation) and because the Judge had heard of my difficulties with my client, he insisted on telling my client how fortunate he was in being represented by me.  Two senior members of my chambers were in court waiting to be called on and heard the Judge’s comments. My client didn’t wait to say thank you.

A week later, the Chambers Tenancy meeting took place and thanks in large part to what was reported by those who had been in court, I was offered a tenancy. I was taken for a drink by a senior member who was to become a good friend, Ian Goldsworthy. His advice (only half in jest): “If I were you, my boy, I would give it up now while you still have a 100% success rate.” Two days later and following a trial for shoplifting, my success rate had plummeted to 50%.

The next few years were incredibly busy. I would often spend weeks in the same court with a jury being sent out in one case and immediately starting the next one. One or two judges, I suspect, became heartily fed up with me. My speediest full trial was at Croydon defending a man charged with handling stolen goods. The jury were sworn at 10.35am and returned their verdict at 11.10am (thankfully one of Not Guilty). I was always accompanied by a solicitor’s representative. In many ways, the solicitor’s rep was the glue that held trials together, who could smooth difficulties between counsel and the defendant, who would make notes, be a sounding board and support the advice being given. Those who undertook this task were often people with very substantial experience in attending court with counsel. The vast majority of counsel today have never had that assistance and the system has suffered immeasurably in consequence.

My luck continued. For a long time, from the late 1980’s, I acted for the Police Federation representing Police Officers in discipline hearings and in criminal cases. All of those cases were challenging and some immensely so. But in the process, I represented police officers charged with criminal misconduct, perverting the course of justice, corruption and manslaughter. Some of those represented the highest profile cases of their kind and included the defence of the Guildford 4 and Birmingham 6 police officers and the officers charged with the unlawful killing of Joy Gardner. I represented a retired senior officer in the Macpherson Enquiry following the brutal racist killing of Stephen Lawrence and the grossly inept police investigation that followed. I represented police officers from Regional Crime Squads and the Flying Squad charged with the most serious allegations of corruption.

I was on the Customs List which meant that I split my time prosecuting and defending. I would defend policemen and prosecute suspected drug smugglers and VAT evaders. It was exciting and exhilarating work. It was always rewarding both professionally and financially. Unlike criminal practitioners today, I do not remember worrying about fees or about paying my mortgage or payments to my pension or healthcare or critical illness cover. I was able to save and invest some money. Please do not misunderstand me. I was not wealthy but neither was I struggling to make a decent living.

In 1996, I was asked to become Standing Counsel to the Customs and Excise and having decided to accept that appointment, I resigned from the then nascent monitoring scheme for Treasury Counsel at the Central Criminal Court.

From 1996 to 2001, I was a busy and, I think, successful senior junior undertaking specialised criminal work both defending and prosecuting substantial cases. Those cases were not without moments of substantial humour and embarrassment. On one occasion, I was being led in a trial at Leeds in front of Mr Justice Ognall. My leader was making a submission about which he had not spoken to me and which took me completely by surprise. My usual poker face was clearly absent as Ognall J, (like me, clearly struggling to understand the submission) said at one stage: “Oh Mr X, if only you could see the expression on your junior’s face!”

By now a substantial part of my work was in fraud cases and I would be instructed in cases by and against the Serious Fraud Office.

I took Silk in 2001, two months shy of my 4oth birthday. Again I was lucky. I still defended and prosecuted in the same sort of cases as I had as a Junior but now I was right at the sharp end. And I loved it.

I was one of a number of counsel who were part of a new record for trial length. Between 2003 and 2005 I defended in the longest ever trial in front of a Jury (June 2003 to March 2005) – the Jubilee Line fraud and corruption case. The prosecution had estimated that the trial could take 6 months. Those of us defending thought it could take 12 months. The Judge warned the Jury it could take 18 months. We lost one juror who became pregnant, another who was charged with some allegation of fraud and the trial eventually collapsed when, after 21 months, a further juror simply (and understandably) said he had had enough when the end was nowhere in sight.

I have enjoyed prosecuting and defending in fraud and corruption cases, prosecuting export control cases and defending insider dealing and health and safety cases. More recently I have prosecuted a handful of murder cases. I have had a rich and plentiful diet of appearing in court and advising companies and individuals facing a variety of criminal and regulatory issues.

But my time at the Bar is not defined by the cases that I have undertaken. It is defined by the sense of camaraderie that exists in every case with your co-defending and opposing counsel, the jokes that you make and that are made at your expense and the fact that, however hard you fight in court, you will always enjoy the company of those with whom you have been in fierce dispute when sharing a drink in the pub.

More than anything, my time at the Bar is defined by the friendships I have made. There are simply too many to list here and so I will confine myself to mentioning three people who have been special and inspirational to me and whom I count myself as truly fortunate to be able to describe as close and lasting friends.

Edmund Lawson QC was my mentor and dearest friend at the Bar from my days of pupillage until he died, much too early, at the age of 60 in 2009. He was prodigiously clever and hard working. He had fantastic judgment – almost his first advice to me was: “If you are thinking of doing something but it would make you blush then or if you had to tell someone you respected about it, don’t do it.” But he was much more than those things. Among other things he was modest, fun, generous always great company and someone who made everyone with whom he came into contact feel special. The most difficult speech I have ever had to make was when I delivered the eulogy at his funeral.

I first met Julian Bevan QC when he prosecuted my clients in the Guildford 4 police officers case. He was one of those people who always took his cases seriously but regarded his  own very considerable abilities with much disdain. He was the consummate jury advocate exuding calm and utter restraint. You would never guess that he had, moments before going into court, been a nervous wreck. One of my tasks as his junior was to be able to roll a cigarette for him when his hands were too shaky to put the tobacco in the paper. In one case, I remember vividly how he was able to completely turn a hostile jury by the sheer power of his advocacy, putting difficult propositions into simple words while generating complete trust in what he was saying. He was unbelievably generous to me, constantly recommending me to solicitors for difficult cases. He was and remains a constant source of delight. Now that he is enjoying retirement, I treasure the lunches and dinners when we meet and are able to gossip like adolescent schoolboys.

Ra Healy QC was one of my first pupils in 1992. In many ways, we have grown up at the Bar together albeit that she is rather younger than me. She became my pupil just at the time when my practice was blossoming. I knew I was going to like her when she told me early in her pupillage and with justified confidence that my analysis of some legal issue was completely wrong! In reality she is a proper lawyer and a great advocate. By rights, she should be arguing esoteric points of law in the Chancery Division or the Commercial Court. But she loves being a Jury advocate and she is terrifically good at it. Her sense of irreverence has not deserted her. A few years ago I was leading her in an insider dealing case. When cross-examining an expert on derivates trading, I mis-calculated a percentage difference. When the Judge looked quizzically at me and suggested that my maths was faulty, Ra piped up to say to Judge and Jury “Pah! Just as well he doesn’t style himself as a fancy fraud specialist!”  Over the years she has become a real friend and a confidant. She was the only one at the Bar whom I told when I was thinking of leaving the Bar. With Ra, I know that my leaving Chambers will not change our relationship.

So, the question that I have constantly been asked is: Why leave the independent Bar? The short answer is that I was given the extraordinary opportunity to work in an area in which I am comfortable but with completely new challenges and opportunities. It was, in reality, an opportunity that I could not sensibly refuse.

But it is more than that. Life at the Criminal Bar has become a grind and for many, an intolerable one. The cases that we do are becoming more and more complex. They are uniquely challenging and important for defendants, victims and the public at large. The vast majority of barristers and solicitors doing this work see no future in terms of personal development and financial security to make this a profession that can be enjoyed and sufficiently remunerative to be sustainable.

In the last few years I have seen talented junior members leave the profession to work for the CPS, SFO and FCA as well as joining firms of solicitors. In the main, that is not something that they have wanted to do but something that has been forced upon them.  Those who are doing well (and there are fewer of those than many would think) have seen such extraordinary structural changes in what we do that is done under the most difficult circumstances. Thus and by way of example only, even in high profile murder cases, it is extremely rare to see a solicitor’s representative in court supporting the advocate. It is not just that the fat has been cut from the bone, but huge chunks of flesh have been eviscerated in the drive to achieve economies.

It is positively debilitating as a Head of Chambers when you hear of stories of juniors who cannot afford a train fare to get to court because the CPS or the LAA has failed to make payments long overdue. These are not apocryphal or anecdotal stories. These are things I have seen first-hand.

You may argue that the profession has become too big and that it should be leaner. But I am not here speaking of the dearth of work but the simple fact that the work required to be done, the payments that are made for that work and the way that those payments are made, and often not made, cannot sustain this profession either in its present numbers or in reduced numbers.

However, this is only one part of the problem. The entirety of the Criminal Justice System is in crisis. Successive governments have cut funding to all parts of it, whether in terms of the Legal Aid budget, funds available to prosecutors, police, probation services and prisons. From detection, investigation, trial and all the way through to prison, community penalties and eventual rehabilitation efforts, no government in recent memory has shown any inclination of caring about any of it. And so, at every stage, despite the best efforts of all those involved in every stage of the process, mistakes will occur; short cuts will become common place if that has not already happened.

I have come to the view that unless there is a really substantial injection of funding in all areas of the system, the Criminal Justice system will simply collapse. It will be unrecognisable and will, in reality, be anything but Justice. And by that I do not mean for the direct participants in it but for Society at large. Members of the Bar, Solicitors  and their professional organisations have tried to warn governments of the consequences of under-funding for almost as long as I can remember. Our words have consistently fallen on deaf ears. Even the occasional promises to improve aspects of it have proved illusory. I have no confidence that the position will change.

And so, I am sorry to be leaving the profession but only to an extent. While I am excited by the challenges that I will face in the years to come, I am leaving this profession which has given so much to me with real foreboding. I hope (perhaps in vain) that, in this respect at least, I will be proved wrong.

The meaning of justice

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This will be (for now) my last word on the Tommy Robinson appeal. My legal analysis based on the facts as we now know them deals exhaustively and exhaustingly with the law; my reflections at the conclusion of that piece on whether I was too hasty to assume the correctness of the procedure, I stand by. Being quick to form views in the absence of the full facts is a bear trap I haughtily deplore when others fall in; it is only right to acknowledge if and when I teeter on the brink myself.

But I want to say something, for what little it is worth, about our understanding of justice. And my leaping-off point for this is something that a number of people have drawn my attention to today – this leader in The Sun.

The tweets to me accompanying this photo have been almost uniform: Who’d Have Thunk it, The Sun sticking it to Robinson and Co, Good On ‘Em.

And parts of this leader are indeed brilliant. Whacking to pieces the myth of this oppressed citizen journalist is vital, and needs doing as often as the piñata is reassembled by far-right agitators. Pointing out that the reporting restrictions that Robinson breached have nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with ensuring a fair trial – the genius is in the simplicity of its expression. Spelling out in equally simple and clear terms the danger that such actions pose to victims of crime receiving justice – [INSERT MERYL STREEP APPLAUSE GIF].

But there’s a line buried within which troubles me, and echoes a sentiment that has been tweeted at me a lot in the erroneous assumption that I share it:

“His many convictions stretch from violence to fraud. We have no sympathy.”

This ugly and unnecessary throwaway reveals one of the biggest problems we have with our understanding of justice; the same problems that many of us are quick to highlight in our opponents. And that is that Robinson’s character, conduct and previous convictions, as reprehensible as they may be, are utterly irrelevant to the issue determined at the appeal, namely whether he received a fair hearing. If he did not – and he did not – he is as entitled as any of us to redress, or at the very least to an acknowledgment of being wronged. The attitude of “Who cares? He’s a criminal” mirrors the exact sentiment that has left the criminal justice system – from legal aid through to prisons – in its present desperate state.

It is immaterial whether Robinson has committed horrible crimes. Many people who appear before the courts have, especially in my line of work. And rights, if they mean anything, have to apply to everyone. It’s an obvious point, but this fundament of the rule of law is too often forgotten when we are confronted by society’s most unlovely.

If we neglect our first principles of justice, we fall into the trap carefully lain by the far-right. Their entire, dishonest thesis – from Trump through to Robinson – is that they are deprived of natural justice by its unequal, unprincipled application at the hands of liberal enemies of the people. By denigrating and distorting the rule of law they aim to undermine and ultimately destroy it. Implying that Robinson’s previous criminal record renders him less deserving of justice than the rest of us hands the far-right the prize they crave.

Don’t be fooled by the strained triumphalism of the far-right over yesterday’s outcome. This result is a disaster for them. It categorically disproves to a global audience every conspiratorial tenet of their religion. The liberal judges are not locking up political dissidents. There is no state cover-up. Mistakes, when made in the legal system, can and often will publicly be righted.

They may be proclaiming that they fought the law and won, but for the truth just ask The Clash. The winner, if we must talk in such terms, is justice.

Which moves me back to The Sun, and the risk of an equivalent false triumphalism on the other side. For just as the far-right mendaciously spin this righting of a procedural wrong as a “victory for free speech” – by which they mean the right to hound Asians accused of criminal offences – so we risk self-denigration by dismissing, or worse revelling in, the punitive effect of the court’s error. The joy that some are taking in the notion of Robinson’s imprisonment borders on the macabre.

I’m afraid if you’re supportively tweeting me amidst the blizzard of the racist bots to share a gloat that Robinson has maybe spent more time in prison than he should have, or to gleefully cross fingers that he gets longer next time, I’m not your ally in this cause.

It may be, when the contempt matter is dealt with anew by the Old Bailey, that a sentence is passed which matches or even exceeds what Robinson has already served. But at present, he served a sentence that followed an unlawful procedure. That shouldn’t happen. To anybody.

And if he does receive a lesser sentence – if the court, after a full and leisurely hearing at which all mitigation is made available finds that the appropriate sentence is much lower than he received first time round – and if it means he has therefore served longer than he should have, all the arguments I’ve made in my book about miscarriages of justice apply. It’s wrong. He should be entitled to an apology, and recompense, and all the other make-goods I demand on behalf of others. His perceived or actual shittiness is not material. If he has been imprisoned when he should not have been due to state error, it’s as much a problem as if it happened to “one of the good guys”.

So those are my closing musings. I have no issue at all – and nor should any of us – with Robinson seeking to and succeeding to challenge the lawfulness of his treatment at the hands of the courts. We are all entitled to due process, and should all expect, however abominable others may consider us to be, that the law will be applied fairly and correctly. My concern, contrary to what the Breitbarters would like to pretend, has always been the mob lining up behind Robinson to spread lies and quite literal fake news as to what took place, what the factual and legal issues are and how the law operates. Those peddlers of hate and deceit – the UKIPs, the Breitbarts, the Rebel Media, the Infowars, the unmentionable Twitter favourites – I will continue to resist as long as I keep up this vainglorious mission to bring law to the people who own it.

But as for what happens to Robinson now, all that should matter is that he gets justice. If, in his righteous pursuit, he encourages his supporters to continue their threats to the rule of law, their riots, their organised campaigns of racialised misinformation, I will be there waving my tiny paper sword on the front line.

But taking any sort of pleasure in anybody being failed by the justice system? We’re better than that. Let’s show it.

Why Criminal Justice Matters: Live Event at the RSA

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On Tuesday evening, the RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) hosted an event, “Why Criminal Justice Matters“, at which a panel of industry experts (plus me) discussed the plight of the criminal justice system, and what can be done to remedy its failings.

The discussion was chaired by Joshua Rozenberg QC, and the panel featured:

  • Penelope Gibbs, Founder of Transform Justice
  • Angela Rafferty QC, Chair of the Criminal Bar Association
  • Jonathan Black, Partner at BSB Solicitors
  • Nazir Afzal, Former Chief Crown Prosecutor for Northwest England at the Crown Prosecution Service
  • Me, via live Twitter feed.

It was a thoroughly enjoyable event, and I am extremely grateful to all  concerned for their participation and support. Tickets sold out quickly, I’m told, but for anybody who wasn’t present and didn’t catch the live-stream, the event can be watched for free here: