Aside from transient excitement piqued by tabloid headlines about “soft judges” or “cushy prisons”-headlines which, by the way, are almost always factually inaccurate or misleading-there is little public interest in how criminal justice does or doesn’t work. The problem with justice is that it simply isn’t a sexy political subject.

“By the early 2020s, the Ministry of Justice will have had its budget cut by over half (51%) in a decade” By the early 2020s, the Ministry of Justice will have had its budget cut by over half (51%) in a decade, and this was from a starting point of being underfunded. No part of the criminal justice process-from police to the Crown Prosecution Service to legal aid to the courts to probation to the prisons-is sufficiently resourced to perform its functions safely and competently. It sounds like a simplistic diagnosis, but the common theme behind many of the ills of the criminal justice system is a chronic lack of resources. We see lawyers receiving their briefs only minutes before they are to present them in court, of blocked communication channels, of court dates being repeatedly postponed, and of crucial evidence vanishing without trace. But your book paints a deeply revealing picture of administrative incompetence in the English legal system.

Foreign Policy & International RelationsĪ functioning criminal justice system is vital to our health as a society.

In The Secret Barrister: Stories of the Law and How It's Broken I want to share some stories from my daily life to show you how the system is broken, who broke it and why we should start caring before it’s too late.Ī Sunday Times top ten bestseller for twenty-four weeks. The innocent are wronged and the guilty allowed to walk free. Too often the system fails those it is meant to protect. I work in the criminal justice system, and every day I see how fairness is not guaranteed. Whatever your role, you’d expect a fair trial. You might be a juror, a victim, a witness or – perhaps through no fault of your own – a defendant. You may not wish to think about it, but one day you or someone you love will almost certainly appear in a criminal courtroom. Shortlisted for Specsavers Non-Fiction Book of the Year.

Shortlisted for Waterstones Book of the Year. Winner of the Books are My Bag Non-Fiction Award.

An anonymous barrister offers a shocking, darkly comic and very moving journey through the legal system – and explains how it's failing all of us.

The secret barrister books in order