The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

Her mother bent forward and placed a kiss on Hood’s cheek.

“You are grown up now, Hood. Time to make your way in the world. And we are so lucky that the Great Wizard, Lord Chan-see-Lore has agreed to take you as his apprentice” her mother said as she straightened up and wiped a solitary tear from her face.

Hood didn’t feel lucky. And at 12, didn’t feel particularly grown up.

“Now, Hood, be brave,” her mother said and steered her towards the heavy wooden door.

If she didn’t feel lucky, or grown up, she definitely did not feel brave. Every child in Gallia Pusillium was scared of Lord Chan-see-Lore. Every child had been frightened into good behaviour by the mere mention of his name. Every child knew the stories of his terrifying magical powers. And how he would use them if he found himself displeased with you. You were lucky if he turned you into a frog. There were rumours, dark rumours, that he had a spell which would instantly transport the target to the untamed badlands. And no one wanted to find themselves in the untamed territory known only as Defra.

As Hood tremulously approached the door it wheezed open as if pushed by an unseen hand. The young girl slowed in her pace and looked back at her mother who bore an unconvincing smile.

“I will see you tonight Hood, good luck and try, please try, not to make him angry….”

This last warning caused Hood to stop. She should turn back. She always made grown ups angry. She couldn’t help but make grown ups angry.

And then her feet were moving. Not by her bidding. Her mind was screaming at her feet to stop. Yet, as surely as if someone held her ankles and yanked each foot forward, she began to move towards the door, her feet slowly rising and falling like an astronaut walking across a moon of treacle.

Now she was across the threshold and the wooden door whooshed shut behind her. The air was still. The only sound was her heartbeat which reverberated around the stone walls of the short corridor which lay ahead of her.

A voice boomed from nowhere. The sound filling every bone in Hood’s quivering body.

“Ah, my new apprentice,” the voice deeply announced, “it is so good to have you here. Such a shame the previous one lasted such a short time. Such a pity he had to go. In a flash.”

The last words echoed, bouncing off the walls and repeating just that phrase. “In a flash“. Like a spell. A violent spell.

“Come, come. No need to tarry. We have much to do. Come, come. Pedestrianarius compellebulum”

It didn’t matter whether Hood wanted to do as instructed. Her feet responded to the incantation, moving of their own accord, propelling her to the end of the corridor. As she reached an oak and iron door it vanished into thin air and then reappeared behind her as her feet took two enchanted steps forward.

From the narrow confines of the passageway Hood suddenly found herself on a wide ledge in a vast chamber which spiralled above her head and out of sight, and plunged beneath her feet to dark dank depths. The ledge on which she stood was, in fact, a wide step in a staircase which climbed up the wall to her right and descended to her left. As she took in more of her surroundings she could see that the staircase led to the occasional square platform which jutted out from the wall.

Now, moving her own feet, she edged closer to the lip of her stair and surveyed the square platforms as they fanned out below her. On the one nearest to her she could see that it was set up like a sitting room, with a sofa, a chair, a coffee table and a rather chintzy rug. On another were all the accoutrements of a laboratory, tall flasks of bubbling liquid being heated by a dancing flame. On a third platform were a vast array of plants, being fed by a complex watering system and each bathed in light from an invisible source.

And on each Hood could see an intense cacophony of movement. Little figures darting this way and that. Here one turned down the flame as a flask was about to boil over, there one turned off the water as a plant pot filled to the brim.

Hood shook her head. These little figures were not human. Nor animal. They were no creature she had ever seen before. Their bodies were thin and gnarled. Their arms were twig like. They propelled themselves on what looked like grass skirted legs. If she was not very much mistaken, each figure was a walking, working little broom.

“Welcome to my little abode.”

Hood’s attention was dragged back to immediately in front of her as the Wizard appeared, as if by magic (and let’s face it, he was a Wizard, so it was going to be by magic). But it wasn’t just the appearance which was magic. He was suspended in mid air, floating, bobbing like a buoy at sea.

“I am the Great Wizard, Lord Chan-see-Lore,” the floating figure introduced himself, in a manner which was not in the least bit friendly. Not that an introduction was necessary. Every child knew the stories. And every child knew that the Great Wizard also possessed a great jaw line. Like a cliff face over a beach.

“I am Hood, Sir” she managed to say, whilst also bowing.

“Always refer to me as My Lord or Your Great Wizardness,” the floating Wizard commanded, “as you are my servant and I am your master. And I always demand a civil servant. As for you, you are my apprentice, my pupil. So I will call you Acolyte Hood.”

“Yes, Great Wizard,” Acolyte Hood bowed once again.

“And now, follow me,” commanded the Lord Chan-see-Lore as he floated upwards and out of sight.

Hood looked into the void. She wasn’t sure she wanted to follow. She wasn’t sure she wanted to be here, but she certainly did not feel like she wanted to step off the edge of her ledge and plummet below.

The Great Wizard reappeared.

“And, of course, I suggest you take the stairs,” the sorcerer added, before floating aloft again.

Hood took the staircase upwards. One flight. Two flights. Three flights. And on the fourth flight she found herself on one of the square rooms without walls like she had seen earlier. This time it was all bookcases and a desk. With the little broom like creatures dashing hither and thither, dusting books, putting books back on the shelf, getting books from a shelf.

Her new boss was standing behind the desk. Hood double checked. His feet were on the ground this time. His jaw was still jutting.

“Over time, Acolyte Hood, I will teach you magic. You are not here to do the menial tasks, that is why we have the enchanted brooms. They are here to do the fetching and carrying,” as he was saying this, three brooms scuttled towards him, carrying an ornate cloak.

The Wizard took the cloak from the three animated brushes, who instantly became stiff and lifeless, falling to the floor with the percussive sound of wood hitting stone.

Lord Chan-see-Lore swirled the cloak above his head and let it settle around his shoulders.

“Now this morning I have to go out and be out all day. So you have one job to do, Acolyte Hood. One job and one job alone. You see, my little enchanted broomsticks keep everything running smoothly. But the enchantment which turns wood to willing servant is time limited. So they need an occasional reboot.”

With that the Wizard produced a wand from inside the cloak and circled it above his head.

“Revival totalis”

All three brooms once more sprouted arms and their bristles parted down the middle to form legs. They immediately went about their previous task cleaning and sorting the library.

“Now, Acolyte Hood, the magic involved in the vivification of my little workers is amongst some of the most complicated magic imaginable, it is magic that you were learn over many years. But today you have to be in charge of making sure that my little helpers keep going….so….”

And with this the Great Wizard moved the wand in a tight figure of eight before his eyes and said the words “automatis enchanter”. The tip of the wand began to emit a low glow.

“What you must do, whilst I am gone is patrol each of my rooms and look for sleeping brooms. When you see one, touch the glowing tip of this wand on any part of them and it will revive the spell.”

Hood began to reach out her hand to take hold of the glowing wand.

“Not so fast,” said the Wizard as he drew the wand back towards himself, “for I have more to tell you. It is vitally important that you carry out this task solemnly. The brooms perform many tasks that not only keep this place working, but keeps it safe. You have to keep them working. But the magic in that wand is so powerful that you must treat it with great care. Touch only the brooms. Do not wave it around. Do you understand?”

Hood nodded.

The Wizard let go of the wand and it floated through the air until it hovered just in front of Hood.

“Take it,” instructed the Wizard.

Hood reached out with her left hand towards the glowing tip.

“NO CHILD!” boomed Lord Chan-see-Lore, “you must hold the other end, do not touch the active end.”

She switched hands and her fingers wrapped around the thin, magical reed. As soon as she touched it she could feel a slight warmth and a barely perceptible tremor passing through the wand.

“Do your task and do it conscientiously. The last apprentice was not conscientious,” as the Wizard was speaking he placed his hand inside his cloak and arced it above his head, sprinkling himself in some glittering dust, “and he turned into a….”

Before the last word was formed the Wizard vanished leaving a wide eyed Hood holding the wand like it was an unexploded bomb.

Suddenly the air crackled and the face of the Wizard appeared inside a spinning orb.

“….great disappointment. And I forgot to say. There are 131 rooms and 393 staircases. Get to work.”

The spinning orb began to fade, the features of the Wizard disappearing. Then it flickered once more into sharp focus.

“One final, final thing. Hold on tight.”

Hood instinctively gripped the wand hard as the orb vanished. And it was a good job she did as her arm was almost yanked clean off when she felt the Wand suddenly pull her to the edge of the room. Her feet scraped along the stone floor, trying to stop her progress to what seemed to be an inevitable death if she were to go over the edge. Just at the moment she was going to let go the shining tip of the wand pointed upwards and it were as if she was being raised by an invisible crane. Her feet left the floor and she soared upwards and out into the middle of the building with no floor or roof in sight.

The wand pulled her upwards and upwards, the air rushing past her face until whatever magical wings the wand had been given pulled her to the right and deposited her on the floor of the uppermost platform.

Hood sank to her knees, the terrifying ride over, the wand still rigidly clutched in her hand. She breathed deeply. Gasping for air. Slowly her heart returned to a mere thunderous beat.

When then prospect of death had rescinded to a recent and terrifying memory, Hood took a look at where she was. It appeared to be a bedroom with an unmade bed, complete with Harry Potter duvet set.

Next to her, on the floor, was a smallish broom. Remembering her task she touched the glowing end of the wand on the broom handle. It would be marvellous if a broom that came alive and lifted itself from a stone floor would then dust itself down. But it doesn’t. It just gets on with its work of making a bed.

Hood found two more inanimate brooms and set them on their way to tidying and cleaning. She then descended three sets of stairs, taking her three quarters of the way around the outer wall of the tall chamber when she came across another platform with a bathroom.

She spent a little time finding four brooms which went to work running the bath and cleaning the shower. She spent a bit more time trying to get a toothbrush and a toilet brush to grow arms before she realised that the wand spell only worked on those brushes that were already enchanted.

And so she went on. And on. Staircase after staircase. Room after room. Broom after broom. A room that housed owls and bats in cages. A room that was lined with scrolls and locked boxes. A room that was almost exactly like her mum’s kitchen.

She spent over an hour and, despite it being an hour of stairs, rooms and brooms, she realised she had only checked twelve rooms. She wasn’t very good at maths. But she was very much behind her target of 131 rooms.

Then she came across a room which had only a tall desk and matching stool. No brooms. No other furniture.

She had been working for over an hour. She probably deserved a little sit down. So she pulled herself up on to the seat of tall stool and found a thin book on the desk. It had a dark brown leather cover with golden letters across the front. The gold was so iridescent, it seemed to glow. In fact, as she looked more closely, it did glow. Five capital letters. “HMCTS“.

The glowing letters were so inviting. They called to her curiosity. She placed the wand on to the table and opened the cover.

Inside, handwritten in ornate writing was the expanded title

“Hexes, Magic, Charms, Teleports and Spells”

and the author “Gauke Chan-see-Lore G.W.”

She turned the page. And then the next. Each one contained the title of a spell, a description of what it achieved, an instruction as to how the wand should be waved and the words to be uttered. Spells to make chairs walk, clocks talk. Spells to turn people into frogs and frogs into flowers. Spells to freeze the air and spells to make the rain fall.

One caught her eye. And her imagination. It was called “One Conversation”. And it was a spell to amalgamate things into one. So if you wanted a giant bee, you could cast the spell on the beehive and you would have a thousand bees transformed into one. If you wanted the tallest set of ladders, you just needed some smaller ladders.

This was good. The movement of the wand was described simply as a flick of the wrist. The instruction was to imagine, as you flicked the wand in the direction of the desired object, a bigger version of the object. And then the nearby objects would join together to form a bigger version. Perfect.

Why waste your time with four or five brooms in a room? Having to touch each one. When one big broom only needs one touch. And would be much easier to find. Surely one large broom per room could do the work of more, smaller brooms more efficiently? It would be able to reach further with longer arms. It would not have to do all that running around.

Repeating the words of the incantation, Hood closed the book and grabbed the wand. The Great Wizard would be pleased at this increased efficiency, Hood thought to herself as she made for the staircase.

The next room below was one of the rooms which were covered with shelves and trestle tables with weird and wonderful plants on it. She noticed that some of the plants were bathed in light from some unseen source. Others were being fed water through tubes and pipes that ran here and there.

This room had a lot of brooms. She could see four or five working, with one or two prone where they had fallen.

Hood picked up one of the inanimate brooms and put it on the table before her. She closed her eyes. She imagined the broom, but much bigger. She flicked her wrist and opened her eyes.

Nothing.

The incantation. She had forgotten to say the incantation.

She closed her eyes again. She pictured a single, big broom. She flicked her wrist. And as she did the words “digitalis reformum” left her mouth.

She opened her eyes. Still nothing. She sighed. It hadn’t worked. A good idea. But she wasn’t a magician, just the apprentice.

Remembering her task, she touched the tip of the wand to the broom which returned to the little worker like the others. It stood up on the table.

Before it could move though, one of the working brooms stopped tending to an exotically coloured cactus and ran across the same table and launched itself towards the recently revived broom. It was almost as if it was going to jump into its twig arms. But it didn’t. As they came into contact with each other, each seemed to absorb in the other and there was one broom in their place, twice the size of the original.

The next broom rushed on its brushes and suddenly it was three times the size. Then the next. And the next. The broom was now taller than Hood. It began to work. It barely had to take a step to move between tasks.

Oh, how Hood glowed with pride. On her first day, her first day, she had done magic. Which she had taught herself. She was no disappointment.

She moved towards the staircase, ready to move and improve the next room. This chamber would be a hub of continuous improvement. As her foot hovered on the top step one of the little brooms came running up the stairs, passed her and threw itself at its larger colleague.

Hood shrugged. What was that sound? That scrabbling, scratching sound. The sound that her mother’s handbrush made when she scrubbed the doorstep.

Another broom appeared coming up the stairs. Then another. And another. And then the staircase was alive with little brooms, all running as fast those bristled legs would carry them.

Hood turned back to the single broom. It was growing and growing. It was now too big for the gap between the tables. A whole trestle table was upturned. Pots smashed on the floor. Soil went everywhere. The tubes and the pipes split, water turning the soil to mud.

Hood flicked the wand. “Enough,” she said. “ENOUGH!” she repeated. “ENOUGH!!” she shouted. Nothing happened.

The broom must have been a hundred times the size now. She needed the book of spells. That must have the answer.

She moved to go back up the staircase, only to find that it was a sea of scurrying brooms. She turned back to the room to see that it was a total mess. Everything was destroyed. And the broom was so massive that it was having to stretch its legs across the span of the chamber to find somewhere to stand. And still brooms came to add to its size.

Hood looked over the edge. She could see other platforms. Other of the square rooms which moments earlier had been tended to by a squad of dedicated brooms. She could see one of the laboratory style rooms. Where there had previously been simmering liquids there now appeared to be miniature fireworks going off. And not such miniature fires breaking out.

She could see a bathroom. The brooms must have abandoned their work when midst bath cleaning. Now the water they had been running from the tap had already overflown from the bath and was cascading from the edge of the platform like a waterfall.

The worker broom now filled the void at the heart of the chamber. Hood could no longer see its arms or its brush. Just a section of what would have been the handle, thicker than any tree trunk which had grown naturally.

At least the staircase was now empty and Hood could return to the spell book. She took the steps two or three at a time to find that the desk and stool had been overturned in the commotion. The desk top resting over the edge of the precipice. And the spell book gone.

Tears started to come.

“What have I don? What have I done?” wailed the distraught apprentice.

Hood could hear little explosions reverberating around chamber. Flashes of curious light lit the gloom. There were noises, smells and colours that spoke of chaos.

“What is going on?” boomed a recently familiar voice.

Without warning the Wizard was with her. Not floating. Not a face in a spinning orb. The Wizard, in front of her.

“I…I….,” stammered Hood.

The Wizard seized the wand. He waved it in a complicated pattern whilst hopping on one leg. Words tumbled from is mouth. Incantations too fast for Hood to follow. Sparks flew from the tip of the wand and then tumbled throughout the chamber.

The noises stopped. The light returned to a constant. There was still a mixture of smells. But they no longer told of chaos.

And no massive broom any more. Just the right number of brooms, in the right number of roles.

Hood cowered. She waited to hear a crack of thunder that would take her to Defra.

But nothing. Nothing happened.

The Wizard helped her to her feet.

“You are here to learn. And there was your first lesson. Never meddle in something that you don’t understand. Never will you achieve efficiency by mistaking ease or speed for efficiency. This system has taken years for me to develop. It improves itself, but not by such blunt instruments. It is for you to learn and to work better with what we have, not destroy what we have to make it better.”

The Wizard sort of smiled.

“Now, go home. Come back tomorrow. If you think today was difficult, tomorrow we will embark upon your training in the most difficult of tasks. The spells of security. It is all about tasting hot potions and the search for the three sacred objects – umbrellas, phone chargers and paper clips. These three things are known as the Holy Grayling. And the tricky thing is the three items may be entirely different tomorrow…..”

THE END

With apologies to Goethe, Walt Disney and a little bit to JK Rowling

Iolanthe Part 3

The last in an occasional series where I meet the Lord Chancellor…..

Now people, don’t be lazy. Please read Iolanthe Part 1 and Iolanthe Part 2 before reading on in order to get the full context.

A recap. In Part 1 I reported how the Lord Chancellor was asked if he could give an early reassurance on client choice and his response was to say he was listening but could do no more at the moment because he was in the midst of a consultation that he had to let run its course…..three days before he was widely reported in the press giving an early reassurance on client choice. In Part 2 I told you how the Lord Chancellor revealed he had been talking to people who thought they could provide a service within his “financial envelope” of savage cuts……which turned out to be the Law Society.

In Part 3 you will hear some of the Minister’s views on lawyers, fat cats and Michael Turner. And when you hear how some of those views are expressed you may also find out what his opinions really are!

So the next topic covered was the eligibility criteria for criminal legal aid and the £37,500 income threshold. In what you may view as a socially awkward moment the Minister asked the questioner if he understood the income threshold. He then went on to explain, speaking very slowly so we could keep up, that it was disposable income that was the determining factor and not income. He then went on to explain what disposable income was. We were all managing to keep up. He then went on to explain that it basically meant that someone had to be earning a six figure salary before they would be caught by the income threshold.

[I am just going to interrupt at this point. He had been doing a good job up to now of telling us what we already knew. But his protestation that it basically only captured those on a £100K salary did, perhaps, reveal something he did not know. It is household disposable income. So two headteachers, married to each other and their work, would in many instances have a joint income in excess of six figures. If it was the case that one of them was the subject of a malicious allegation by a disgruntled or emotionally vulnerable pupil then they may well not get legal aid to assist them through one of the darkest hours of their life. This income threshold does not just capture the wealthy. It captures many a hardworking household.]

However the Lord Chancellor then went on to reveal the things he really did not know. He was asked how many cases that were granted Legal Aid last year would now be excluded by this threshold? He did not know. He was asked how many households fell in to a bracket that would be excluded by this threshold? He did not know. He did qualify the restriction by saying that there would be a discretion to allow Legal Aid in certain cases.

[I presume by this he was not simply referring to cases where the public would quite like the defendant to have Legal Aid but was a reference to financial hardship etc. Let us for a moment just imagine that the Lord Chancellor was right and this provision only captures those in the very highest bracket of earnings. In these circumstances I would imagine a high proportion of people falling in to that category are prosecuted for fraud or commercially related offences. Those are often the more complex prosecutions. Not made complex by the lawyers but by their very nature. Hence they are often quite costly. So costly that most people’s disposable income would be dwarfed by the cost of the case. So they would be exempted and receive Legal Aid under a hardship test. So all we have achieved is the added cost of the whole process of eventually granting them Legal Aid with all the administrative cost and delay that will entail. Brilliant.]

The most junior practitioner in the room, a barrister conducting publicly funded family work, then addressed the Minister. He described the increasing reluctance for practitioners to undertake publicly funded work. He described his own regret at having followed this path already. He eloquently told the Minister, “the Bar is not making up the fact it is under threat – it IS under threat”. The young barrister then deplored the fact that the consultation introduction drew unfair comparisons with the salaries of public servants and the press statements relating to the income of the Prime Minister.

[Hold on to your hats….] The Lord Chancellor responded, “If somebody is deriving their income from Legal Aid work, in my view, rightly or wrongly, then I struggle to see why, taking in to account chambers fees, VAT, pension contributions, why someone’s actual personal income from criminal Legal Aid should be more than the Prime Minister earns and the truth is at the top end of the scale we have people earning considerably more than that.”

[I am making no comment. The fallacy of this argument has been dealt with elsewhere in an excellent piece by Matthew Scott.]

He continued, “I have been accused of saying that barristers are fat cats, I have never said barristers are fat cats.”

[You may never have used those words. It is just an unfortunate coincidence that those words appear in newspaper stories that report your view that barristers should not earn more than the PM whilst we are treated to another photograph of you, arms folded, looking tough in a prison. I await your complaint to the PCC.]

And then, “Look, financially and logically we should just go for one case one fee. It is obvious. It makes perfect sense. Its easier to operate. It creates a streamlined system but I don’t do it because I didn’t want to destroy the Bar. I have had colleagues say I should do it but I didn’t want to because I want to preserve the Bar.”

[And in that moment we have both reassurance and a threat. I feel cared for like an orphan being called “my dear” by Fagin.]

Yet the words of support kept on coming, “I don’t think the Bar is in trouble per se. I think the Bar has a big challenge because of the number of people in it and the number of people trying to come in to it. I recognise coming in to the publicly funded Bar is much less financially attractive than coming in to the commercially funded area of the Bar but that’s the decisions we take. That’s why I became a member of Parliament instead of carrying on with a job where I earned £60,000 per year more than when I became an M.P. You do it because you want to do it.”

[Now reader, wipe away that tear. Stop the gratitude swelling your heart for the selfless sacrifice to public office made by Chris. When he became an M.P. he had the prospect that the more successful he became his income would increase in proportion to the responsibility of his role. He also had the safety net of the potential for a pay rise. I have no such comfort. He was able to emply his wife on a salary of £37,500 per year, paid for by the state. I am sure if I could employ a member of my family as my clerk and have the State pay for it, I would find my income would go that little bit further. He has the State contribute towards his living expense for a second home, despite his proximity to London. When I go to Bristol next month to do a trial, I will pay for my hotel out of my fee. If he is voted out of office at the next election he continues to receive an income from the State as he continues to receive his salary. If all my solicitors go out of business in the autumn I receive an income from the State. But it is means tested and called Job Seekers Allowance. So Lord Chancellor, although I began in Part 1 saying I was impressed by you, this is the point when you started to lose the room completely. This was the moment when we were treated to the duplicity that lies behind the cuts.]

But he did go on to reassure us that he “knew junior publicly funded barristers are not earning a massive amount of money and are not fat cats. I have never suggested they were [my dear]”

It was probably for the best that the discussion turned at that point to the unintended costs of litigants in person becoming more prevalent. The Minister was adamant there was no evidence of that. [By that he meant statistical evidence, we can ignore the experience of the Judiciary.] He also stated that he was not worried about not being able to find suitable experts as “we still pay experts £70, £80 or £90 per hour so they are not going to be impoverished as a result of it.” [ Can I be paid £70 per hour? Can I be paid for my preparation and my attendance at court? Please Lord Chancellor, can I?]

As the allotted time neared it’s conclusion we were told, ” We are going to take decisions as sensitively and as thoughtfully as we can. Every decision we’ve taken has been taken for a reason. We may have got some of those reasons wrong but that is why we do a consultation and looking at what people have said and being smart enough to spot when someone says you haven’t got that right and work on it through the summer.” [Except when it comes to client choice, which he will decide upon immediately before appearing in front of the Select Committee because that could have just been embarrassing.]

And then came this gift, “I promise you I do listen and try to talk to people. It is said Chris Grayling never talks to lawyers. That is simply not true.” Which allowed Paul Becker to immediately pounce with, “Well why haven’t you met with Michael Turner?”

Answer……”Michael Turner had a meeting last week with my colleague Lord McNally. There are a lot of people to meet, we are not each meeting with everyone. I have met with the Bar Council, the Law Society, Circuit Leaders, Law Society regional committees and about seven meetings like this with lawyers. Lord McNally saw Mike Turner a couple of weeks ago. Maybe three weeks ago, so we are not ignoring anyone.”

[I probably need make no comment. And yet I cannot resist a little word or two. The list of people the Lord Chancellor had met was impressive. The name Mike Turner is a glaring admission. When dealing with a consultation that includes swingeing cuts to the fees paid to members of the Criminal Bar who would you have at the head of the list that the Lord Chancellor should spend his Friday evening talking to? Me, a criminal hack, or Mike Turner, the voice of the Criminal Bar Association? The idea that this is as a result of Mike Turner having been met by Lord McNally instead of the Lord Chancellor was just too delicious for me, as anyone who has read The Wizard of Epsom will understand.]

And with that, following a photo opportunity which was, for reasons I will not trouble you with, personally hilarious, the Minister was gone.

So what did I get from the meeting? It made it clear to me what we face. As has been demonstrated in the last 48 hours there will be changes and modifications along the way. However I am convinced that he still considers it necessary to introduce catastrophic changes to the system. Yes he will ameliorate the proposals by altering client choice. Everything else is still in the mix. I cannot help but think reducing access to justice is as troubling as ignoring justice. I cannot help but think headline grabbing capital is being made out of things like a residence test for eligiblity. I make no bones about the fact that the perceived need to reduce fees is dangerous, unfair, unthinking and just wrong. I will not apologise for feeling that the work I do requires adequate remuneration. I do not think it is self interest in wanting skilled, not just competent, advocates and lawyers to be present to play their part in the prosecution of the culpable and the protection of the innocent.

Those who oppose these changes oppose almost every aspect of them. The brutal truth is that the Lord Chancellor sees himself as a reformer. Transforming Legal Aid is his crusade. A petition alone is not going to defeat him. Articulate argument is not going to defeat him. Demonstrations with lawyers carrying the coffin of legal aid are not going to defeat him. Strongly worded letters to the Times will not defeat him. Vaguely amusing blogs will not defeat him. But defeat him we must. He has to be forced to see that cuts are unsustainable. He has to be forced to see that the concept of justice is not about unit price, or mere competence, or commerce but is about excellence. I cannot think of anything that underpins our nation in terms of its spirit, rather than just a flag, more eloquently than a sense of right and justice.

Everything that has gone before in terms of opposition has to be redoubled. The petition needs another 100,000 signatures. We all need to keep sharing our thoughts and information. We need to keep the clarity and force of our arguments in the public conscience. In a coalition of thought as disparate as those who oppose these plans there will be difference of opinions but we need as much unity as we can muster in line with our individual beliefs. We need to be prepared for the fact that, in due course, the Government will introduce a series of changes which are unacceptable. And then we must prepare for action. Direct action. And in that we must be bold, unswerving and skilfully led. I know my enemy. I do not underestimate my enemy. I know we can win.

PS it really bugged me throughout the meeting who the Lord Chancellor reminded me of. Then it struck me. His incessant use of “Guys” was reminiscent of Cliff Richard in Summer Holiday…..

Thank you for reading. If you have not done so already, please see what else was said in Iolanthe Part 1 and Iolanthe Part 2.

The Unfair Taper

This is a genuine record of the progress of a criminal trial before the Crown Court. No criticism is intended of any party or individual. No exaggeration has been made. What is important is that under the current Government proposals counsel would be penalised for the progress of this case.

Day One

The Judge has a couple of cases to deal with before commencing the trial. That allows counsel to discuss one or two final matters prior to the jury being sworn. As soon as the Judge has finished his other work the parties are ready to go. A jury is sworn. However this is a day of industrial action by certain members of the court staff. This trial involves one principle witness who will give evidence via the live link facilities. Other ongoing trials need the non-union staff to cover things like juries retiring to consider their verdicts so the case has to be adjourned at lunchtime until the following day. All concerned in the case, Circuit Judge and two counsel with 40 years experience of such matters, agree that the case should be concluded within 3 days. Comfortably.

Day Two

Everyone is ready and raring to go at 10.30, the allotted start time. Counsel have been in court before then, testing that the DVD playback works and is audible. The staff test the link to the witness room. Everything is ok. Prosecution counsel open the case to the jury. The Judge talks to the witness over the link and we prepare to watch the DVD of his evidence. Save for the fact we cannot. Inexplicably the screens are blank. 45 minutes are lost whilst three members of the court staff struggle to rectify the problem.

The next problem then becomes apparent. The witness has certain mental health difficulties. He can properly be described as vulnerable. This is known in advance and there has been an assessment of his needs. However whilst the DVD is being viewed the witness, who can be seen at all times by the Judge, indicates that he needs a break. Due to his problems all parties, including the defence, immediately agree that he should be provided with whatever accommodation is required for his comfort and wellbeing. Hence a video that has a duration of 60 minutes takes almost two hours to watch due to the need for frequent breaks. The frequency of requests for breaks increases once cross-examination commences. The length of these breaks vary between a few minutes to twenty minutes.

In this second afternoon of the trial there was over an hour available for the purposes of cross-examination. Due to the need for breaks actually questioning occupies 20 to 25 minutes of this time. Additionally the pace of the questioning is dictated by the needs of the witness. The propositions explored are broken down in to manageable chunks. To allow the witness to understand and put in context the questions there has to be a degree of recap of what has gone before. Any competent counsel adapts the manner of their examination to cater for such matters. You may be able to cover the same ground with one witness in 5 minutes, with a different witness (a child, someone with learning difficulties or someone being deliberately obtuse) the same ground may take 20 minutes.

Day Three

Today there is a valedictory for a Judge who has been appointed to the High Court bench. That takes place at 10am with the courts listed to start at 11. Now I will have a little personal moan here. When the Northern Circuit decided to hold a meeting during court hours to discuss and respond to the consultation the majority of the local judiciary responded that the sitting of the court could not be disrupted for this. Here we are, part heard in a trial, already losing time and the court is taking time out to celebrate the advancement of…. a member of the local judiciary. I actually support this, I welcome a good relationship between local practitioners and bench. I welcome the opportunity to celebrate the achievements of one of the Judges I regularly appear in front of. However I am also a big fan of consistency. And I kind of believe that practitioners dealing with the approaching wreck that is the consultation is on an equal footing with saying “well done” to someone on their new job.

Back to the true theme of this piece. Although the valedictory concludes at about 11.15 the court is not ready to commence again until 11.40. We continue the staccato cross-examination of the complainant. We break for lunch and the jury are sent away until 2.15 as the Judge has to deal with another case at 2. So of course we do not commence in the afternoon until 2.30. When I finally finish with the complainant it is 4pm. The only other witness in the case is also on videolink so we cannot start her that afternoon.

Day Four

Due to testing the equipment and then ironing out one or two problems with the next video witness the court does not start until 10.50. Eventually, with only two breaks this time, we conclude that witness. And the rest of the prosecution case is dealt with by formal admission. Fifty pages of witness statements, the bad character evidence and fifty pages of interview dealt with in formal admissions that take one page of A4. The rest of the day is taken up with the defence case.

Day Five

All that is left are speeches. The Judge quite correctly decides it would not be appropriate to sum the case up in the afternoon before the weekend. Additionally he has three cases that have been moved back from earlier in the week including a sentence listed for an hour. Those are listed at 12.30. Of course we start 20 minutes late as efforts are made to set the air conditioning to reduce the temperature of the court as it is 74 degrees. Not exactly conducive for listening to counsel….

So there we are. A week in the life of a case that should have lasted three days. Not a single delay was the fault of the advocates. The only contribution the advocates made to the length of the trial was to reduce it by agreeing formal admissions. Of all the people involved who are the only ones for whom it is suggested their remuneration decreases each day it lasts? The advocates. The daily taper is a slur made against every advocate operating in the Crown Court. It says we drag cases out to make money. And it is exactly this false justification for the “reforms” like this that runs through the consultation like Blackpool through a stick of rock. If the Lord Chancellor came out and made cuts that would be one thing. It would be a thing that I would be up in arms about. But to dress them up as some form of reform, some form of streamlining of the system just sickens me. It maybe hysterical but it is also indicative of a confidence trick that the MoJ is trying to pull on the public to make cuts where there is no room to make cuts.

Do not let the Lord Chancellor get away with this inequity. Sign the e-petition.

The Inconvenient Truth part 2

My favourite backbencher pays another visit to the Lord Chancellor. Completely imagined of course. No snooping going on. That just isn’t fair or British.

Lord Chancellor Don’t I know you?

Backbencher Yes Lord Chancellor, I came to see you a few weeks ago about the Legal Aid reforms.

LC Yes. I never forget a trouble maker.

BB I don’t like to think of myself as a trouble maker, I was only raising a few concerns about your plans….

LCYes well, we shall do what I always do, and we can agree to disagree then I do what I want.

BB Very droll.

LC What is?

BB What you just said. About agreeing to disagree and then doing what you want. I mean we are in the middle of a consultation and you have promised this time it’s genuine.

LC Well it is genuine. I have genuinely asked what people think about the proposals that I have already decided to bring in. We can play around a little with the detail so people can see we have genuinely listened.

BB Oh I see.

LC In government if you are going to be a reformer you just have to bite the bullet and reform.

BB Yes, I know. You’ve said that before.

LC I know. I like the sound of it. Macho. Attack dog-like. So when it comes to consultations you can’t get all namby-pamby and listen. Look at the pickle it’s got Hunt in. Should have had the courage of his convictions. As I said to Hunt the other day “in government if you are going to be Home Secretary you just have to bite the bullet and save Gideon some cash”.

BB Sound advice no doubt. Anyway I am not here to talk about the Legal Aid.

LC Thank f….. goodness for that. I would have had to fire Felicity.

BB Who is Felicity?

LC The gal you spoke to make this appointment. Had to fire Maureen after she let you through last time. Next thing I know she would have had me sitting down talking to Ashtray and Biker.

BB Who?

LC Doesn’t matter. Just a little joke between Quentin and I.

BB I am not going to ask. But Felicity and Maureen are kind of the reason I am here.

LC I see, been caught have you?

BB Caught doing what?

LC Doing a Cecil Parkinson. Or, as you said both of their names, perhaps you are more of an Alan Clark?

BB Good Lord no.

LC Right. You are not going to tell me that you are the kind of chap that shouldn’t be allowed in a B&B are you, because I am not sure I am the person to confide in.

BB No Lord Chancellor, I am here about your wife.

LC WHAT? You are sitting here calmly telling me it’s my wife you’ve been sha….

BB NO! NO! NO! NOOOOOOO! My constituents have been writing to me wanting to raise some questions about you employing your wife.

LC So it’s not about sex then?

BB Definitely not.

LC Jolly good. So, what has my wife got to do with your constituency?

BB It is just that some of my constituents have written to me asking about you employing your wife. They say, well, they say it undermines your credibility as a reformer and as a Minister of State.

LC What does?

BB Giving your wife a job. People question whether she actually does anything.

LC Of course she does.

BB What?

LC She is my secretary.

BB But don’t you have people in your department who work as your secretary? Like Felicity?

LC Yes but this is in connection with my constituency role. It is different.

BB Okay. Another thing. You pay her £37,500 per year.

LC I certainly do.

BB Doesn’t that seem rather a lot for a secretary?

LC But she is an Executive Secretary.

BB And……?

LC One of the first things I learnt at the BBC was that if you add “executive” to any job title and you immediately add 20% to any salary.

BB I am sure Legal Executives will be pleased to hear that.

LC Ah…yes…well. One of the first things I learnt here was add the word “legal” to anything and you can take 40% off it. It’s swings and roundabouts.

BB Do you have any concerns about how this looks?

LC We all do it.

BB I don’t.

LC Well you are coming across as a little naive generally so I am not surprised.

BB And actually only 142 out of 650 MPs employ anyone connected to them.

LC Perhaps it takes a certain vision to see the obvious benefits.

BB Well I do hope that you get good service because at £37,500 per year that places it in the second highest bracket of salaries paid by any MP to a connected party.

LC As I have told you before, you have to pay to get quality.

BB But according to the ONS the mean income for a female barrister in 2011 was £34,000.

LC And? Your point is?

BB Well don’t you think that’s a bit rich?

LC Yes I do. Rich is the word. Those fat cat bastards. This is taxpayers’ money we are talking about here. It isn’t free money. We have to make sure they are getting value for money. It’s not there to line the pocket of some lawyer representing a fraudster.

BB No, Lord Chancellor, not the money paid to the barrister but the money paid by the taxpayer to your wife. Are they getting value for money?

LC Of course they are….mobile telephone rings, the ringtone is “Nobody Does it Better”. The Lord Chancellor answers….. Hello snookums…..Yes dear. I am just in a meeting……..No I am seeing Harry with Gideon later, owe him a drink……….What’s that dear? What time will I be home? Depends on which home….. giggles….. I know I always say that sweety-pie, but it still amuses me. Right I will be home about 7, then off out to meet some chaps from the constituency party so I don’t need supper. See you in a bit darling…..hangs up and turns to Backbencher….. Sorry about that, Mrs G just checking up on me.

BB Shouldn’t she know. After all she is your Executive Secretary….

LC Smart arse. Where were we?

BB Well I couldn’t help but draw the comparison between what you pay your wife and what we pay a lot of barristers.

LC You have got a real bee in your bonnet about this haven’t you?

BB Well I just wonder about the taxpayer and your wife. Was she the only candidate for the position?

LC Well there was Laura and Henrietta. But Laura was a bit needy and Hen got upset when I happened to say that her friend had a nice smile but fairly much from the moment I met Mrs G we were in a serious relationship.

BB No Lord Chancellor, not for the position as your wife but as your executive secretary. Did you put it out for tender? Get value for money?

LC Good Lord no. Mrs G and I have an existing relationship, the trust is there so things go quicker and smoother because we know each other so we don’t spend ages going over old ground.

BB Does that remind you of anything Lord Chancellor? Does that in anyway strike a chord with you?

LC No. Nope, sorry, you’ll have to help me.

BB I am really beginning to think you are beyond help….

LC Look old chap, lovely as these chats are, I am going to have to hurry you out now. Dave was on the phone before you came. Said he wanted me to pop over to number 10. Wants to chat to me about Northern Ireland or something. He must be planning a boys trip. Maybe a little golf. Do close the door on your way out…..

If you have got this far reading this nonsense you are probably the type of person who has already signed the e-petition. If you haven’t then click on the blue word and get it signed!

The Case for the Defence

There is much current debate about the size of the Legal Aid bill footed by the taxpayer. In an episode of typical disingenuity the Lord Chancellor has recently expressly stated that the public have the choice between Legal Aid and the NHS, that the £220 million that he looks to save would be spent protecting the spend on healthcare.

Now the point could be made that the Legal Aid budget has already contributed much by way of cuts with £200 million already disappearing from last year’s spend in this year’s projected budget. Or that slashing 20% of the criminal Legal Aid spend would not even cover one day of the nation’s spend on the NHS. Or that if we were to cut money to the NHS you would cut the spend on non-essential workers (lets say money spent on actors, hairdressers and leadership training courses) before you cut the income of the doctors and nurses who provide the quality of service at the coal face.

However I would suggest that Legal Aid is as important to the provision of welfare in this country as the NHS is. It is about time that the Lord Chancellor recognised this. Until he does he cannot perform the key function of his office. The provision of welfare is all about the provision of a safety net in times of need. Criminal Legal Aid falls exactly in to this category. People are provided with Legal Aid in criminal cases when the State chooses to prosecute them. Anyone provided with criminal Legal Aid would prefer not to have to need it, in so much as they would rather not have been arrested in this first place. So in criminal cases it is not the accused who goes out seeking Legal Aid,it comes to him.

One of the problems that the legal profession face in firmly establishing the credibility of Legal Aid as part of the safety net provided to all taxpayers is the notion that it is only criminals, often repeat offenders, who benefit from its provision. I for one would hesitate to introduce blameworthiness into the provision of welfare. Should a smoker be provided with free cancer treatment? The obese with diabetic assistance? Of course they should. One of the difficulties is persuading the public that prosecution, like ill health, is something that could befall them as much as those who very obviously are the authors of their own misfortune.

Let me give you some examples of the way in which it is not just the guilty that find themselves in need of Legal Aid. These are actual cases that came before the courts in Manchester in recent times. The first was well publicised at the time (see here). I know the defence advocate in the case. A woman in Greater Manchester was subjected to the horrific ordeal of rape. This involved her being raped as she walked home by a man unknown to her. The police collected samples from her that could be tested for DNA in a hope to identify a suspect. A positive result came back. A man in the South West was identified. He was arrested, denied the offence and denied he had ever even been in the area. He was charged with rape and remanded in to custody. He was provided with the assistance of a solicitor and a barrister. There was no other evidence against him but it would be presented to the jury by the prosecution that the presence of his DNA in intimate samples taken from the victim could mean only one thing – his guilt.

The case was prepared for trial. Other evidence obtained showed that the defendant was in the South West the morning following the offence but such as still gave him a window of opportunity to commit the offence. A combination of enquiries made by the defence and the officer in the case being concerned by this aspect of the case led to a re-examination of the scientific evidence in the case. It transpired there had been a huge error. A tray used in the laboratory that tested the sample had been previously used in a DNA test that related to a relatively minor offence of violence in which the defendant was a suspect. This led to his DNA remaining in the tray and contaminating the sample from the victim. His innocence was only discovered days before his trial was due to start. He was an innocent man who needed Legal Aid.

A further example happened in the case load of the same defence advocate. A woman worked in an office. One of her colleagues got married and went on her honeymoon. Sadly whilst she was away the colleague’s house was burgled. A games console was stolen in the course of that burglary. The games console had been in its original box but the burglar had removed it and left the box behind. A scene of crime officer provided a statement that stated the box had been tested for fingerprints and a print matched the fingerprint of the defendant, the woman who worked in the office of the bride.

This came to light because the woman in the office had, when she was much younger, been involved in an argument in the street which had led to her arrest and caution for a public order offence. Her life therefore had not been completely blameless but that was the only transgression. That meant that the police therefore had her fingerprints on record and the match was made. She denied the offence, denied that she had ever been to her colleague’s house, had never handled the cardboard box and could not account for the presence of her fingerprint.

Once again this case came to the Crown Court. One can easily imagine that everyone involved, her lawyers and the CPS, thought that there might be a guilty plea. Fingerprints are unique. The presence of a fingerprint in a dwelling with no innocent explanation is clear evidence of the person’s involvement in the burglary. However she pleaded not guilty and the case was adjourned for trial. Legal Aid provided her with lawyers and with funding to have the exhibit examined to double check it was her fingerprint (such mistakes being unheard of but it required independently verifying). Those investigations discovered that when the test for fingerprints was undertaken a number of items were examined under the same reference number. So whilst that reference number did relate to the console box it also related to a good luck card that the victim had received from her colleagues at work….

Those two cases are examples where the independent scientific evidence pointed strongly at the guilt of someone entirely innocent of the charge. As an aside it must be a worry what may happen in such cases in the future if the advocate is under financial pressure from an employer to deliver the more lucrative guilty plea. However the vast majority of taxpayers would be comforted by the fact that their DNA would not be floating around labs or that youthful indiscretions had led to their fingerprints being on a police database.

So let me move on to the next illustration. A hard working man of entirely good character worked as a satellite television engineer. He installed a new box in the house of an elderly couple. He asked to use their toilet. When he had left the woman of the household discovered that a valuable necklace was missing from the top of her bedroom cabinet where she had left it that morning. The police were called. A thorough search did not turn up the necklace. Both husband and wife gave statements that the necklace was on the cabinet moments before the satellite engineer arrived. The door to the bathroom was next to the door of the bedroom. Moments after he left they discovered it was missing. The man was arrested. He denied the offence but was charged with theft. Again he was provided with Legal Aid for representation at the Crown Court. No doubt he was relieved to be provided with such assistance. And that was assistance provided to an entirely innocent man. Decorators found the necklace behind a radiator in the elderly couple’s bedroom a few weeks before the trial. A man who had never been in trouble had simple been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Circumstances conspired against him. Should he have faced those circumstances alone? Should he have paid for his own defence? Should he have had a lawyer assigned to him by the state of only “acceptable” quality?

My final example is a man I represented. He was a retired engineer. Later in life he and his wife had a daughter. It would be fair to say she was the apple of his eye. She went to university. Whilst away from home she met and fell in love with a man. Sadly he was entirely unsuitable. Not just in the way that many parents may find a child’s choice of partner not what they had hoped for. This man was just bad news. He introduced the daughter to drug use. He assaulted her. After many anxious months the daughter had the sense to leave the boyfriend and return home. The parents were overjoyed to have their daughter back and set about repairing the damage.

The boyfriend would not give up. He tried contacting the daughter. He began turning up at the family home. The father would bar his way and, after often heated discussions, would send him on his way. On one such occasion the father pushed the boyfriend. The boyfriend produced a knife. A tussle ensued. The father disarmed the boyfriend but the boyfriend kept on coming. In the doorway to his house and fearful of what may be about to happen the father jabbed the knife in to the thigh of the boyfriend. No doubt surprised by the level of resistance the boyfriend hobbled away. Straight to the police. He made a malicious statement that told of how the father had pulled a knife on him and stabbed him. The police visited the house and discovered a knife with the boyfriend’s blood on it. Remarkably the father was charged. He had a trial. He was acquitted. All due to the safety net provided by Legal Aid.

So whether it be by scientific negligence or paperwork error, whether it be by a genuine and honest belief mistakenly held or malicious falsehood innocent people can find themselves facing a criminal court. It matters not whether they have never been in trouble before. Of course such examples are at the extreme end of the spectrum. For every one like that I have witnessed I have represented dozens of repeat offenders who are guilty. And there are those in between. People who would never have thought they would be before the courts but end up there because of a combination of circumstances, sometimes because they are guilty, sometimes because they have done something wrong but not what they are charged with or sometimes because they are unfortunate to find themselves wrongly accused of crime.

The point is that democracy requires the efficient and proper prosecution of those guilty of crime and protection for those falsely accused. The method of determining which category an accused falls in to requires them to be represented. It is not possible before the process commences to determine those who are deserving of assistance because they are innocent and those that are not because they are guilty. That is why we all have an interest in maintaining an effective provision of criminal Legal Aid. Like all safety nets you hope you never fall in to it. Should the unexpected happen you would have every reason to be grateful that it catches you. The professions can work with the Lord Chancellor to provide further savings. But he has to place the preservation of this vital aspect of society at the forefront of his approach. Not the current attitude of seeking to turn public opinion against the system and those toiling within it. Legal Aid is something which the nation should be rightly proud of. I believe that they are.

If you agree that criminal Legal Aid is a vital component of a civilised democratic society please sign the e-petition here. Thank you.