Practice Toolset

District Judge Nicholas Crichton has been described as “a family justice pioneer.” With funding for the Family Drug and Alcohol Court pilot scheme due to end on 31 March, he talks to Ffyon Reilly about its future.  

Nicholas Crichton has been the resident district judge at the Inner London Family Proceedings Court since 1997 and a district judge for 25 years. He chairs the Voice of the Child sub-committee of the Family Justice Council. He has worked internationally on various projects in the field of child protection, most notably in Bulgaria where he has visited all 28 family courts and visited many specialist institutions. He is a passionate advocate for children’s rights and was the driving force behind the setting up of the award winning Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC) in 2008. I spoke with him at court early in January when the issue of future funding for FDAC was uncertain. 

Dr Sarah Krähenbühl explains what psychological expert witnesses can and cannot do in respect to children’s testimony

One police interview video shows a girl, 5 years old, who refuses to sit still, chatters happily and only occasionally answers the questions asked; another shows an older boy who answers in monosyllables and displays no emotion throughout the interview. In both videos, the interviewers do their best; they continue asking questions, try alternative techniques, remain patient but are clearly aware of the limited time available… 

David Wurtzel looks at the results of the Bar’s recent survey of the working lives of those at the Bar and sees what patterns have emerged.  

Who is a barrister? There are 15,000 potential answers to this question but a more focused one will be found in the fascinating and reader-friendly ‘Barristers’ Working Lives’, a biennial survey of the Bar carried out in 2011 by Employment Research Ltd and the Institute for Employment Studies and released in January. Nearly 3000 barristers answered the survey which is deemed to be a good representation of the population. 

Having witnessed the assessment process for the CPS Advocacy Panels, Ian Wade QC reveals what he saw and asks, “Did the CPS make the grade?”  

As the Criminal Bar faces unending tribulation, here came yet more you didn’t want – Crown Prosecution Service grading.  Following the 2009 HMCPSi report, from which neither “in-house” nor external advocates emerged with a clean bill of health, the Director of Public Prosecutions declared a commitment to improved advocacy. The inspectorate recommended a unified system of grading for all prosecution advocates, so a new assessment regime became inevitable. For many self employed advocates the brave new world of competency based and evidence tested rigour has not hitherto touched their lives, and sadly this was a block waiting to be stumbled over. Many highly competent, well regarded advocates did not get the Level they applied for, and may be perplexed at the outcome. Too often they had only themselves to blame. Simply asserting, “I am a great barrister” no longer cuts the mustard. 

Stephen Akinsanya explains how some lateral thinking - and an ipad2 - saved the day, time and money in a criminal court . 

It was the moment that every defence counsel dreads; a returned trial on a Friday and the discovery, as you read the brief, that a key defence witness was a Lance Corporal serving with the Royal Lancashire Regiment who had been flown to Cyprus prior to taking up duties in Afghanistan. 

The Statute Law Society aims to educate us all about the legislative process. Michael Jennings explains

The Statute Law Society (‘SLS’) is a charitable body which since 1968 has been fulfilling its aims of educating members of the legal profession and the public about the legislative process and encouraging improvements in statute law. They have done this through lectures from noted experts and by developing educational projects. 

Much has been said about the legal aid cuts but another critical issue is the eternal rejection of claims by the Legal Services Commission and the crippling financial consequences for barristers waiting for payment. Vanora Bennett investigates. 

Legal aid defence barristers, already struggling to adjust to massive cuts in public funding, are being dealt a double blow by a second, more insidious problem – the worsening difficulty of getting any pay at all from the Legal Services Commission (or the LSC). 

Mr Justice Geoffrey Vos looks at the role of the judiciary in the success of the UK Plc

I want to address a subject that I feel very strongly about. It is the question of what can be done to promote the aspects of British business and professional life that are thriving and, in short, often the envy of other countries. We in the UK are very good at self-criticism. But we are not so good at understanding and defining what we are good at, what others respect us for, and making a study of how we can capitalise on some of these (very many) advantages.  

David Pittaway QC, Chair of the Neuberger Monitoring and Implementation Working Group until the end of 2011, reports on the progress that has been made at the Bar in improving access to the profession.  

Last September I took part in a filmed interview for a BBC2 programme on social mobility within the professions. Its working title was “Who stole the best jobs?” later changed to “Who has the best jobs?” The interview lasted 90 minutes and ended up on the cutting room floor. The content was apparently not sufficiently newsworthy. The actual momentum of change did not meet the perception of privilege. The broadcast programme focused on other professions with the Bar coming out of it relatively unscathed. 

Do we need protection from data protection? asks David Taylor as he warns barristers of their duties under the Data Protection Act 1988 . 

Barristers and their chambers can no longer be complacent about their duties under the Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA), and fines of up to £500,000 are now within the power of the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). Worse still: if you fight your corner in court, then unlimited fines and up to five years in prison are added to the armoury. If that weren’t incentive enough to keep your data safe, many breaches of the act are also criminal offences of strict liability.