The Defence Brief

A typical Magistrates' Court - no defence brief in sight due to legal aid cuts Not long ago, I wrote about mitigation given in the case of a celebrity who had been convicted of drink driving.   I return to the topic today after seeing what should have been a car crash of a plea in mitigation, but was saved by the “inexperience of the bench” – those were the words of another advocate who witnessed the hearing. I want to say at this point that I don’t write these posts in the hope of shaming another advocate or because I want to show off. I write them because I think it is important for all of us who appear before the courts to be reminded once in a while that everything we say (and the things we choose not to say) are important and proper consideration should be given to everything. That often does not happen when people view offences as “not serious” or “unimportant”, but while a drink driving or TWOC may be minor in the grand scheme of things it will be impor...

"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...