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: Diary of a Criminal Solicitor

Can't You Just Make It Up?

By Gavin

I spent most of my day today at my local Magistrates Court. I dealt with a variety of cases including one matter where my Client had previously pleaded guilty to driving without insurance and his case had been adjourned until today for him to argue that despite being a potential totter he should not be disqualified from driving due to 'exceptional hardship'.

Unfortunately this Client had only contacted my office yesterday and everything today was rushed as a result of there being very little time to prepare the case. My Client went in to the dock and during a series of preliminary questions asked by the Magistrates I had to keep asking the Client for the answers because of the lack of time that I had had with the Client prior to his case being called on. During these questions I was approaching my Client in the dock and asking him in a quiet voice the questions in order to get a response to give to the Court. My Client would then reply in an equally quiet voice that the Magistrates could not hear, and then I would pass that answer on to the Magistrates. When I asked my Client one particular question he responded, "Can't you just make it up?" I was somewhat surprised at this response. Many people will suggest that I am morally corrupt doing criminal defence work, but, one thing that I will not do is make up stories for my Clients. I replied, "No, tell the Court the truth." My Client then came up with the answer after some considerable thought.

The case continued for some time and after my Client had given evidence under oath the Magistrates announced that they were satisfied with My Client's evidence and despite imposing 6 penalty points on his driving record when he already had 6 penalty points they did not disqualify him from driving as a result of being a 'totter'.

After the hearing my Client commented that the private fee that he had paid my firm to represent him had been the best money he had ever spent. He then went on to say that he had now understood that to succeed in Court you needed to know what not to say rather than what to say. This was a fairly good observation to be made by a lay person, but he was correct. Advocacy is the art of persuasion, and usually the most persuasive argument is one that ensures nasty facts are not made known to the Court.

Full post as published by Diary of a Criminal Solicitor on September 19, 2006 (boomark / email).