Mitigation: the art of not putting your foot in it
"What the actual feck did you just say, Mr Diable?" One thing all advocates need to learn is how to put mitigation in the best possible light. A very common mistake, one I see happening all the time, is advocates who blame a client’s misfortunes on their conviction, e.g. any sentence that begins “As a result of this conviction Mr X cannot…” is usually going to go wrong. Before I move on I am going to make clear that I am not criticising any individual mentioned in this post and that I was not in court for the events described so I am relying wholly on press reports. There are many reasons why an advocate may approach a case in a given way and people on the outside will not be aware of those reasons. The facts reported by the press are probably not a perfect reflection of how mitigation was handled and it may well be that they completely distort the undoubtedly wise words of Counsel; however, the reports do reflect advocacy that I see on a daily basis so I a...