The Butcher, the Baker and the Barrister: The way things were they will not be.

 

In July of this year an exceptionally fine pair of candlesticks called the Cremorne Candelabra sold at Christie’s for just under a million pounds.  Manufactured by John Wakelin and William Taylor in 1790 those two craftsman could not have imagined that 225 years later these objects would be valued solely for their form and not at all for their function.  There were three men in the tub in the nursery rhyme but the candlestick maker was long ago consigned to oblivion by the unforgiving and uncaring march of progress and technology.  A question well worth pondering is whether the barrister is destined to go the same way.

 

Absolutely rightly the ever more agonised negotiations between the legal professions and the Ministry of Justice have focussed on public money and the sufficiency of its supply in order to guarantee the proper functioning of the justice system.  Lawyers insist that the tipping point is long since past whereby inadequate funding means justice simply can’t and won’t be done.  Civil servants and politicians on the other hand hope and believe that more cuts can be made while keeping some semblance of a justice show on the road.  If scandal, media and public outrage can be avoided then the axe can keep on falling regardless of the real consequences.

 

However this piece is not about money and the need for more of it to keep justice alive.  That goes without saying and I have said it before, repeatedly.  Instead this is about change, the change we see, the change we ignore, the change we embrace and the change we fear.  It is a remarkable paradox that almost all politicians stand on change platforms when running for public office and yet within our private lives change is so often alarming and threatening.  What of course politicians are really selling is a belief in beneficial change, not disconcerting and uncomfortable disruption.  However this ignores that almost all change, whether for good or ill, involves a period of unsettling destabilisation.  Better the devil you know is the unconscious mantra for many, many people.

 

Every barrister in England & Wales must belong to an Inn of Court.  Only four remain, geographically concentrated they cherish their unique identities and traditions but to an outsider they are identical repositories of Hogwartian ritual and arcanum.  This connectedness to the past is comforting to many barristers whose day jobs may involve far too complete an immersion in the horrors of the modern world.  But even stupefied by the Port at the end of an Inn dinner it is impossible to ignore that pressures are being exerted on the Bar and the Inns that are far greater than whether Michael Gove will relent on two tier contracts.

 

I am amongst the last generation of barristers that, like barristers since the dawn of the Bar, undertook legal research in libraries.  As a pupil in 2004 I vividly recall queues for the photocopiers and strict instructions about magnification and not cutting off margins and page numbers.  Finding a case on point was a test of resourcefulness and diligence.  Yet now in 2015 Inner Temple is the first Inn to go public with its admission that library usage has plummeted.  Plans are afoot to reduce the library’s size and convert the space into revenue generating meeting rooms. Not surprisingly this has angered and dismayed a number of barristers who recoil at any encroachment on the Inn's learning heart.

 

Now legal research is so easily achieved via online databases that the Court of Appeal has had to enjoin lawyers not to inundate judges with every case ever heard on a particular point.  A very obvious consequence of the diminishing importance of the Inns’ libraries is that the necessity for the proximity of barristers’ chambers to the Inns is over.  How long will tradition impel barristers to feel that they must pay over the odds for the prestige of a Holborn address?

 

The concept of a virtual chambers is already well established, a more interesting question is how long bricks and mortar will endure.  The hard copy law reports in my chambers long ago stopped being an essential resource and instead became immensely expensive wallpaper.  Other self-employed tradespeople like plumbers do not clock off at the end of the day and return to a building full of other plumbers.  Why will barristers continue to do this when a chambers is just a seriously expensive place to store pointless paper briefs and conduct meetings?

 

Of course the pooling of expertise and the training and apprenticeship provided by pupillage is not something that will ever be replicated in any meaningful way virtually but the changes to our working practices, embraced or not, may inexorably lead to a dissolution of the camaraderie and fellowship provided by chambers.

Technology has long ago moved on from the manufacturing industries and made encroachments into the services.  Algorithms underlie most of the trading on the world’s stock markets.  Only the doltish or the naïve could assume that legal services will enjoy any immunity from this process. 

 

Of reassurance to barristers though is the fact that as long as oral advocates are called for it will be a long time before machines and computers are advanced enough to take over.  If barristers wish to thrive though they need to ensure that they are as unencumbered as possible.  Buildings, staff and administration are all expensive; are they necessary?  A principal virtue of self-employment should be nimbleness and agility.  If barristers voluntarily weigh themselves down they can only blame themselves when they sink not swim. 

 

By way of contrast the modern world poses a real threat to the traditional work of solicitors.  Competent and literate clients are capable of drafting their own statements, gathering their own evidence and even serving their own documents.  The importance of the ‘paperwork’ side of legal practice as a professional specialism is diminishing every day.  As long as oral advocacy remains a feature of the justice system the importance of the ‘talking’ side will be preserved.  When the tools of your trade are your mouth and your brain why are you paying through the nose to imprison them in a fancy building in the Temple?

 

I am old enough but still young enough to share the anxieties of the leaders of the Bar while feeling those of pupils.  The coming death of the Bar has been coming for a very long time and, truth be told, will carry on coming for many more years.  Young barristers are resilient and resourceful; they know the Bar they will practise at may not, should not even, look anything like that which Silks know and love.

 

The next decade will see some very significant changes.  I predict that the Advocacy Training Council will become a very much more powerful organisation and if the Inns are to maintain their traditional role as gatekeepers to oral advocacy they will have to consider opening their doors to all advocates whatever their job title.

 

Like the Cremorne Candelabra if the Bar wants to avoid becoming no more than an expensive and decorative antique it will constantly have to reassert that its function is vital.  I am cautiously optimistic that it will succeed and, thankfully, you can't put a wig on a computer.

 

Tied up in knots and choked by choice - Why less is more.

I have just moved house.  Notorious for inclusion among the three Ds of devastating stress: Divorce, Death and Decamping.  It must be a near universal experience of a house move to be horrified at the sheer quantity of stuff that has been accumulated over the years.  Perhaps there are ascetics who have forsworn belongings who manage to make moves by bus rather than groaning pantechnicon and squadron of burly men.  If there are I’m not sure they and I would have much in common.

 

A paradox in my own approach to life is that I pride myself on an ability to turn up at a departure gate with all necessary belongings in a plastic bag.  Yet in my permanent life I am dwarfed by mountains of pointless detritus.  I have twelve ‘fancy’ waistcoats for wearing at weddings.  This is not normal, it is not healthy and it is not OK.  I need a motto or slogan for my life, a Max’s maxim - Nobody’s looking at you mate.

This is not exaggeration, as this inadvertent experiment I undertook demonstrates.  The name Karl Stefanovic is unlikely to mean much to most Brits but he is an Australian news anchor who wore the same suit on screen  for a year to expose the contrast in scrutiny of men’s and women’s appearance. 

In my own tiny recreation of this endeavour I have worn this tie to work every day for the last three months:

It is a plain blue handmade tie from Paris.  I did not buy it I inherited it.  It is from a manufacturer so discreet there is no mention of it on the internet.  It is a very nice tie and was no doubt very expensive.  My reasoning was if you’re going to wear one thing it best be a very nice thing.

For three months I have got up and have not had to give a second’s thought to my choice of neckwear for that day.  It has been one less worry at a very worrying time.  You of course may feel that a normal person  would hardly have to worry about what tie they were going to put on.  But, as I have already said, I am not normal.

Now that I have been reunited with what my wife determinedly believes is the effluvia of my past rather than a jointly owned cornucopia of delights I can once again choose what message I wish to convey to the world via a scrap of cloth about my neck.

It is not an easy choice because this is my tie collection:

 
As all barristers know there some situations that are so grave that there is no mitigation so the only defence I will raise is that I inherited the vast majority of these, of this insane profusion of peacockery. 

Never have I understood better that if I want to tell the world something I can do it with my mouth, or even better my actions, rather than through some obscure semaphore of silk.  Not one single person remarked on the monotony of my tie, nobody decried my lack of imagination,  in short nobody cared.
 

 

When Gandhi died, a barrister who knew a thing or two about travelling light through life, these were all the possessions he owned in the world:

 

The moral of the story is: little but lovely.

How to be a witness: Good Looks & Fleeting Glances

We do not teach children to be witnesses.  It is not surprising therefore that the quality of witnesses varies enormously.  As patients are to doctors so witnesses are to barristers and barristers will habitually refer to good or bad witnesses.  A good witness is, first and foremost, truthful.  A good witness is clear.  A good witness is reasonable.  A good witness is accurate.

The purpose of this blog is to help you be a good witness.  This is not by way of coaching which is, quite rightly, completely forbidden.  Instead this is intended to be a general survey of matters you may want to (try to) bear in mind if you are ever unfortunate enough to be a victim of or witness to a crime.

I was prompted to write this by a recent random attack on a person close to me who was alone at night in the street.  This occurred without warning, was unprovoked and without any apparent motive.  Mercifully no injury was inflicted and the assault was short lived but great distress and anxiety were unsurprisingly caused.  As I reflected on this it occurred to me that in all the time I had known this person we had never had a discussion about what makes a good witness.

As a teenager I underwent First Aid training although have fortunately never had to deploy the skills I learnt and hope I never have to but it is a source of comfort to me that I have this essential background knowledge.  I hope that what I set out here can remain in your background knowledge, ideally never needing to see the light of day.

If you have been unlucky enough to be the victim of violent crime you will be sadly familiar with the fight or flight response triggered by the massive adrenaline rush that accompanies such incidents.  This response is very useful for the immediate preservation of life however it is unfortunately also what causes many people to be terrible witnesses.  Panic and clear thinking don’t go hand in hand and while it is easy for me typing this in comfort to say don’t be a rabbit in the headlights, if you stare into them you will be blinded and will make a poor witness.

A remarkable experience many criminal barristers will be familiar with is reading witness statements containing descriptions of robbers or assailants, sometimes quite full descriptions, which when compared with CCTV footage of the incident are completely at odds with the appearance and clothing actually worn.  It is an experience that better than any demonstrates the appalling danger of injustice posed by the honest but mistaken witness.  Such witnesses can project the powerful persuasion of a conspicuous truth teller while inflicting worse damage to the fairness of a trial than the most skilful dissembler.  You do not want to be one of these witnesses.

The case of Turnbull paved the way for recognition of the dangers that identification evidence presents and there is now a significant body of statute and case law that sets out the safeguards that must be in place before such evidence is allowed before the court, a precis can be found here.

But this is no law lecture instead here is some simple advice to ensure that you will never be an honest but mistaken witness:

1. Panic - Stop panicking; easily said but if you can maintain some focus your observations will be fuller and much more likely to be accurate.
2. DNA - If you are a victim of an assault and you have to defend yourself a grasp of your assailant’s hair or a scraping of their skin from under your nails will yield invaluable DNA evidence that can prove presence at the scene (this is obviously last resort stuff and if you can safely make good your escape without getting physical you should do so).
3. Description - You will be asked for this the moment you call the police, it goes without saying the more the better.  In our day to day lives we are not often called upon to provide full descriptions and it is astonishing how unobservant we can be.  As a witness you want to be using your full attention.  This is what the police will want: gender; ethnicity; age; height; build; hair colour & style; distinguishing features (tattoos, scars etc.); and clothing.
4. Quality – In disputed identification cases the quality of a witness’ observation of the assailant is crucially important.  The court will be concerned first with duration, many incidents are over in seconds almost all within a few minutes, the longer you have observed the assailant the less your identification can be attacked.  Under no circumstances do you want your observation characterised as a 'fleeting glance' which usually signals game over for the prosecution.  Distance is the second most important issue with face to face obviously being ideal.  Obstructions – are you observing this through twitching net curtains veiled by foliage and behind parked cars, if so you’re not getting a good look.  Lighting – is the street pitch dark or lit up like Old Trafford?
5. The face – faces are exceptionally difficult to describe but, if observed for long enough, can be accurately picked out in an identification procedure.  One problem with witnesses is that conventional social norms militate against gazing into stranger’s faces and if they have a weapon in their hand this becomes even more difficult.  Shoes, clothing and the rest can be noted in a moment but it is the face that you need to fixate upon.  Ideally you want to know it better than your mother's: sear it into your mind's eye.
6. Write it down – as soon as the incident is finished write everything down, this is obviously particularly important with vehicle registrations, you will want to include as much detail of other potential witnesses as you can, if you have any artistic ability draw a picture of the assailant.
7. Delayed recollection – the immediate aftermath of an assault is an extremely shocking period and often details of the incident will be recalled over time; it goes without saying that these must be communicated to the police as soon as possible.
8. Sure – this word carries enormous significance in a criminal trial.  The jury must be sure that the person in the dock is the person that assaulted you.  If identity is disputed the defence will be saying that the jury can not be sure.  This is important to know and bear in mind when witnessing an offence.

I readily acknowledge that much of the foregoing is obvious common sense and it would be preposterous to imagine that this blog will be at the forefront of your mind should you ever become a witness.  But if just one thought can lodge in your subconscious it should be this: Good Looks not Fleeting Glances.

By way of a brief postscript and aside a vexed issue that is occasionally aired in discussions of gendered conduct is how men should walk down darkened streets.  The sad reality is that for many women the sound of footsteps fast or slow behind them sets alarm bells ringing.  What is not so often admitted is that the same is true for many men. Whether the fear is of robber or rapist fear is fear and it behoves all of us, men and women, not to engender unnecessary anxiety when we are out and about.  Love thy neighbour and all that.

The Shame Game: Why sorry is not the hardest word.

Why do the Royal Family still dress like this?  Is it because formal military dress is smarter than civilian clothing?  Is it because the Queen is the head of the armed forces?  Or is it just because they always have?  The fact is this clothing is extremely symbolic.  The Queen no longer wears uniform, though she once did.  The President of the United States is also the Commander in Chief of US forces but, with the toe-curling exception of George W. Bush, they would not dream of dressing up in a uniform.

Of course Trooping the Colour is a military event and the official celebration of the Queen’s Birthday which is the closest Britain gets to a National Day.  On the face of it therefore there is a good reason for the Royal Family to get kitted up in military finery.  However when the Queen stopped wearing uniform the rest of the family could have followed suit but they did not.

The reason for this can only be tradition.  But what is the tradition being maintained?  It is many decades since we as a nation have had a collective experience of military life.  Despite this the monarch and her family continue to emphasise the significance of Britain’s military legacy in a way that is removed from the living experience of the vast majority of the British people.

The word legacy is significant because the glory of Britain’s contemporary military engagements is very difficult to delineate.  Instead the instinctive reaction of monarch, politicians and the media is to hark back to the World Wars.  The reason for this is obvious: we were the good guys.

Despite this the Royal Family do not wear the uniforms of the Trenches or the D-Day Landings.  Instead like the parading troops they are decked out in splendid ceremonial epaulettes, gold frogging and bearskins all of which derive directly from the 19^th century.  Were we the good guys then?

2015 marks 200 years since Waterloo.  Far removed from any living memory we have still celebrated a battle that removed the yoke of tyranny from Europe.  What we do not celebrate quite so noisily is that our imperial ambition and reach was immensely enabled by Bonaparte’s downfall.

It is a modish predilection to judge our ancestors by the mores and sensibilities of our time and assumption of our modern superiority and enlightenment blinds us to our own indifference to the significant social shortcomings of today.  That said with what honesty have we reflected on our history?  Have we reflected on it at all?

It is a world known cliché that the British are forever saying sorry.  Any native of this island knows full well that a British sorry can mean a hundred different things.  Only one of those meanings involves actually being sorry.  And how often are we actually sorry?  How often have we been sorry?  If love is an action not a word then so is contrition and how contrite have been our national actions?

Race is sometimes referred to as the great untreated cancer eating at the soul of America since the outcome of the Civil War papered over a schism the size of the Grand Canyon.  For the British class has always been our Achilles Heel and the source of our shame.  The Class System is just that, a system to ensure that all those within it know their place and, if at all possible, remain in their place.

The Class System is usually regarded as a peccadillo peculiar to the British and their conception of themselves as a people.  Foreigners cannot participate in or infiltrate the Class System ostensibly because, by virtue of their origin, they are classless.  However this conceals a truth about the British Class System which is that it does not regard foreigners as being outside it but beneath it.  Cecil Rhodes, who else, coined the aphorism: "To be born English is to win first prize in the lottery of life." What few born in Britain today will admit is that even now this is an instinctive belief.

The senior infantry regiment of the British Army is the Grenadier Guards which has had awarded to it 74 Battle Honours, distinctions which appear on the regiment’s quasi-sacred colours.  The first is for Tangier (1680) and the last before World War One is South Africa (1899-1901).  Without digressing into an involved history lesson it will be abundantly obvious that very many if not all of the intervening engagements were not motivated by a desire to free the oppressed and downtrodden.

It is a remarkable aspect of the British Empire that its passing prompted so little fuss at home.  As country after country proclaimed independence Britain largely just let them go.  Absence of fuss has always been a hallmark of ‘Britishness’: it is with good reason that Kipling’s If has for decades been a classroom staple.  But while we have gone on with our fancy dress rituals and afternoon tea huge swathes of the world have been torn apart as a legacy of our actions.

Few things are more unattractive and unconvincing than agonised self-flagellation but that is not the same thing as a good hard look in the mirror and a naming of the historic warts and carbuncles that disfigure the national body politic.  Articulating individual shame is a difficult and chastening experience but until it is done it will continue to fuel addictions and other toxic behaviours.  Candour about national shame is a vastly more complicated and nuanced business, as the Germans know too well, but until it takes place we are condemned to repeat the mistakes of the past with a mindset incapable of growth and maturity.

Would our heedless foray into Afghanistan have occurred if every school child learnt in intimate details the shambles of the First Anglo-Afghan War rather than our heroic stand against Hitler? Equally would the endlessly deferred Iraq Inquiry Report even have been necessary if we had expunged from the national instinct a desire to interfere in countries far beyond our borders?

Being British does not absolve us of recognising historic wrongdoings.  And saying I am sorry is not the same thing as saying I am ashamed; still less being ashamed.  Other countries have truth and reconciliation we have absent minded business as  usual.

Orange Is The New Black: Why prison never goes out of fashion.

As we have known for decades if it’s not happening on TV it is not happening at all and so it is that Orange Is The New Black (OITNB) has thrust the incarceration of women into the spotlight in a manner that no miscarriage of justice could ever hope to achieve.

When something you care about has been granted the oxygen of publicity it is churlish to complain and instead you seize your chance.  The fact is that prison confers negligible benefits on us as a society and in the case of women prisoners almost none at all.

I have written previously that a prison is one place that all children should see before they turn 18.  Not as a ghoulish day out as sometimes occurs in the US when wayward adolescents are shown death row tiers to put the frighteners on them but in order that everybody see for themselves what we do with wrongdoers.  In the same way that we can’t imagine what happens to all our rubbish until we visit the dump for the first time it is hard to conceive what prison is actually like until we see it with our own eyes.

Here are some things that prison is not like: the Ritz; a holiday camp; home.  Here are some things prison is like: spending almost all day and all night locked in your childhood bedroom usually with a mentally ill stranger; sleeping next to your toilet; eating the worst food you have ever eaten – for every meal; being the most bored you have ever been – all the time.

Michael Howard is credited with coining the meaningless slogan ‘prison works’ as long ago as 1993.  It is meaningless because, while it is true that detaining dangerous and recidivist criminals prevents them from killing and stealing, it is certainly not true if you believe that penal policy should meaningfully address the causes of offending.

Prison in the vast majority of cases is a dumping ground and as with rubbish when it is buried in the ground the process just makes people toxic.  Unless and until prisons are properly resourced so that they rehabilitate offenders will not be recycled they will just be caged at a cost to us higher than the fees at Eton.

Prison is particularly pointless and harmful for women, most of whom serve very short sentences that prevent any kind of rehabilitative or educational programmes being devised for them.  In many cases women are separated from their children, even newborn infants, storing up inevitable problems for the younger generation.  Very few women commit the kind of dangerous offences that mean they pose a genuine threat to life and limb and being such a tiny minority in the prison population policy invariably overlooks that their needs are different to those of men.

If OITNB has piqued your interest can I strongly recommend that you consider joining the Howard League for Penal Reform which has endeavoured for years to hold successive governments to account and to inform and instruct for improvement in penal policy.  They are particularly alive to the problems of incarcerating vulnerable women women.

Knowledge is the antidote to populism and nonsense.  A Conservative M.P. recently complained that it was not fair that women prisoners do not need to wear uniforms uniforms. Lest that sentiment strikes a chord with you ask yourself if it is fair on you when prisoners leave prison and return to crime.  For myself I don’t care what prisoners wear as long as prison is a useful and instructive experience.  Prison has been the fashion for far too long; it’s time for a change.

Seeing the sea: The places all children should see & be seen

Hillary Clinton is credited with bringing to mass attention the proverbial concept that it takes a village to raise a child.  Some people obtusely object to the notion on the basis that ascribing to it necessarily involves an abdication of parental responsibility to child rearing.  In fact a sensible analysis simply leads to the conclusion that we all in one way or another owe a responsibility to all children to ensure that they enter adulthood ready and informed to fulfil their potential.

Compulsory education has for decades amounted to a societal manifestation of that proverb.  But of course education extends far beyond reading, writing and arithmetic even if, dismayingly, far too many leave children leave full time education unequipped with even these the most basic tools for living a life fully lived.

It is by no means a novel comment or criticism to observe that much of what is taught in schools is of tangential utility in the day to day lives of most adults.  A classic refrain is the complaint that schools don’t teach completion of self-assessment tax returns and certainly recollection of a dread moment when I contemplated undertaking this task is enough to lead me to add my voice to that particular chorus.

PSHE (Personal Social Health & Economic Education) is the mechanism by which schools are expected, formally, to ensure that pupils leave schools with basic life skills that extend beyond the 12 Times Table and a passing knowledge of the plot of Romeo & Juliet.

The PSHE Association website sets out the statutory position thus:

The Government’s PSHE education review concluded in March 2013, stating that the subject would remain non-statutory and that no new programmes of study would be published. The DfE has however stated as part of its National Curriculum guidance that ‘All schools should make provision for personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE), drawing on good practice’. This position was reinforced by the Government’s latest draft of the national curriculum framework, published on July 8th 2013.

By far the component of PSHE that draws the most comment and provokes the most controversy is the way in which it informs schools’ approach to sex education.  Many people decry the quality and content of sex education as taught in some schools and there is no doubt that the topic arouses strong passions.  Some parents feel that sex education should be entirely the province of the family and others feel that schools shy away from properly considering with children what consent means in the context of sexual relationships and the concomitant responsibility of boys and men to ensure that it has been given.

I feel however that a very worthwhile conversation should be had about what schools and society generally should be teaching outside the classroom.  Since the centenary of the start of WWI last year and running until 2019 the Government has made funds available for every secondary school in the country to send one teacher and two pupils on a trip to one of the WWI battlefields.

In some respects this is a laudable initiative but in others it is frustrating and tokenistic.  The assertion has been made that the two pupils in question will in some osmotic way convey the benefits of their experience to their classmates.  Obviously financial considerations have precluded the sending of all children to the places where many of their great-grandfathers made the ultimate sacrifice.  As it is the contract for the project has cost £5.3 million.  However griping about this scheme carries with it the implicit suggestion of disrespect to the Glorious Dead.  In truth though it is not hard to see why the government was enthusiastic about an exercise that conferred political capital at little political cost.

It would have taken a brave politician to suggest that rather than arrange an outing to the sites of what was supposed to be the war to end all wars that children might more usefully meet the living survivors of current conflicts.  Rather than seeing the brutal effects of war on screen children could see it in the flesh at Headley Court, the rehabilitation centre for wounded service personnel in Surrey.  War maims and it kills and children growing up with the intention of volunteering to serve their country should see for themselves the reality of that fact.

I have a list of places that I believe all children should visit or see before the age of 18 because they are places which will help children understand what adult life (and death is about).  I have previously written about why visiting a court ensures that justice is seen to be done and enables even those who have not performed jury service a chance to understand what the administration of justice means in real terms.  The vast majority of these places can be found near where most children are and consequently the expense of arranging the visits would be more than made up for in the value conferred by the experience.

 

In alphabetical order my suggested list of unmissable places for all children would include:

-       A church

 

-       A cinema

 

-       A council chamber

-       A court

 

-       A GUM clinic

-       A hospice

-       A mosque

 

-       A museum

-       A prison

-       A synagogue

-       A temple

-       A theatre

-       The sea

 

This is my own arbitrary selection of places and, in one case, a thing that should enable every child to understand the ‘village’ in which he or she is growing up and will one day be an adult member of.  I have included the sea because the thought that any child in this island nation could reach adulthood without having seen the sea is in a small way too shocking to contemplate and yet there must be many who do not.  The sea is our most accessible connection to the sublime and a reminder that all societies and the places within them are the construct of men and no education is complete without a realisation that life is not all man made.

Operation Crumbling Edifice - Why legal aid cuts imperil us all

London is in the midst of a huge emergency services training exercise defiantly codenamed Strong Tower complete with firemen wearing those terrifyingly outlandish Nuclear, Biological and Chemical suits.  With a modern twist the training even has its own hashtag #999exercise.  Apparently the training has been in the offing for months, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33315691, and its occurrence in the immediate aftermath of the terrible massacre in Tunisia is completely coincidental.

There are obviously three purposes to such training exercises.  First it is essential that the emergency services and soldiers are ready for a city based attack and it is necessary that they be trained in a city for such a purpose.  Secondly such a public show of preparedness is intended to act as reassurance to us that the authorities are ready and properly equipped and lastly it is a deterrent to any ‘lone wolves’ and groups inclined to launch an attack.

The fact this training does not occur in the middle of the night when negligible disruption would be caused is the clearest possible indication that the latter two purposes are firmly in the government and planners’ minds.  To some extent this is a massive public relations exercise.

As a member of the public it is very hard to know whether one should be reassured or alarmed by such a show of strength.  We are by now all familiar with the terrorism threat levels on display at the entrance of most public buildings:

• LOW means an attack is unlikely.
• MODERATE means an attack is possible, but not likely
• SUBSTANTIAL means an attack is a strong possibility
• SEVERE means an attack is highly likely
• CRITICAL means an attack is expected imminently 

By way of reminder the current threat level is Severe.  Since 2006, when the threat level was made public for the first time, the level has never been anything lower than Substantial.  Pause for a moment and reflect whether your anxiety or fear relating to the imminence of a terrorist attack has fluctuated in any way with the changes to the threat level since then.  What is the purpose of this grading and what is the purpose of making it public?  Ostensibly it is to encourage public vigilance but without the revelation of any of the intelligence or material upon which the security services base their assessment of the threat level.  In other words we are being told that a terrorist attack is potentially imminent but without being told why.

Engendering unfocussed and diffuse anxiety on the part of the populace is at best pointless and irresponsible.  At worst it produces a rationale for the government to trample yet more intrusively on our private lives.  We must be careful to subject any government led incursion into our civil liberties to the most careful scrutiny and testing.

That being said, as the great political philosopher Ronald Reagan observed, a government's first duty is to protect the people, not run their lives.  There can be no doubt that discharging this duty is an extremely onerous undertaking  that has become vastly more complicated since the turn of the millennium.  Equally it would be extreme folly to assert that the government should be obliged to make public all information and intelligence that falls into its hands.  Up to a point we have to trust that the government is fulfilling its first duty to us without demanding a right to call for evidence that it is doing so.

Where however evidence is not only called for but is central to the proper scrutiny of the conduct of the state in its protection of us is in criminal proceedings.  The people charged with ensuring that evidence comes to light and is properly considered are lawyers.  In the first instance it is the role of prosecutors to receive evidence from the police and other investigators in order to make charging decisions.  It is the equally important role of defence lawyers to call for evidence that rebuts the basis for charging decisions and to test such evidence as the prosecution relies upon in criminal proceedings.

If there are no lawyers or, just as dangerous a situation, such lawyers as there are can’t properly perform these essential tasks then evidence goes ungathered, unpresented and untested with miscarriages of justice the result.  We are in the midst of nothing less than a full blown legal aid crisis and the imminent action of many legal aid lawyers is about to precipitate a massive stress testing of the criminal justice system.  This exercise is no less important that Operation Strong Tower except in this case it would more aptly be named Operation Crumbling Edifice.

The next few weeks will be worth watching extremely closely because what legal aid lawyers are saying by their actions is that the criminal justice system is on the point of collapse.  Suppose for a moment that today’s training exercise was a real attack with suspects apprehended.  How is the government protecting us in circumstances where the criminal justice system is malfunctioning so badly that no safe convictions could be obtained?

The worst kind of police officer is that which believes that arrest of a suspect is the end of their responsibility in a case.  In reality everybody involved in the criminal justice process bears a responsibility for ensuring justice is done and the resolution of that process is a jury’s verdict not arrest in a street.  What legal aid lawyers up and down the country are saying is that they can no longer fulfil their roles in advancing the criminal justice process and the reason is that the government is failing us all in its first responsibility to us and that is our protection.