Excellence in Advocacy at NLS

The roll-out of remote hearings was something that was initially leaped upon with enthusiasm by judges and advocates alike. I was always much more sceptical: I wrote an article about this for Counsel magazine in April 2020: https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/justice-by-av-lost-in-transmission-

That was at the start of the pandemic, when courts were mainly shut, and there seemed little other alternative, if cases were to be argued, than allow something other than physical attendance at court. My Chambers, which has barristers practising in criminal defence, family, immigration, housing, Court of Protection and other specialist civil liberties areas (including Tribunals) responded to a consultation about the effectiveness and viability of such arrangements. Some were also in the cases concerning unsatisfactory and unfair decisions resulting from a desire to get the case heard rather than considering the fairness or unfairness of so doing: re B (Children)(Remote Hearing: Interim Care Order) [2020] EWCA Civ 584.

Several years on, there appears to be less judicial and administrative support for such hearings. Judges have recognised that remote hearings pose particular challenges beyond the problems that relatively elderly people tend to have in managing and using technology. Hearings often take longer, and the effects of eyestrain, being stuck behind a screen and so on have manifested themselves in a number of different ways. This was published earlier this year, written by an anonymous barrister author: https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/downsides-of-remote-hearings

So even from the purely selfish perspective of the legal professionals involved, there is much to be circumspect about before thinking that it is better to be slouching around at home rather than attending a court hearing. Even then, there are some hearings, e.g. in the Court of Appeal Criminal Division, where the expectation is that the barrister appearing remotely must nevertheless be robed: https://www.barcouncilethics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Bar-Council_Guide-on-Court-Dress_July-2020-2.pdf

Most of my focus in my earlier article was on the impaired ability of the litigant to participate. Cases often concern the marginalised and ignored. Confining people to an invisible and inaudible name in the participants list, and whose ability to receive help and support from their representatives is also, in my view, significantly affected in a remote hearing. Similarly, the ability of lawyers other than the advocates to raise what may be important points with the advocate is significantly affected in a remote hearing. I propose to spend some time addressing some of the problems inherent in this. Sometimes it will mean deciding at an early stage that a remote hearing is unsuitable, because those difficulties outweigh any benefits to the court. But for now, I am going to suggest some practical methods for managing remote hearings, including the taking of instructions and the ways most effectively to address the court and ensure the participation of those whose case this is.

It is vital that the advocate can take proper instructions and to interact with those who need to be involved, but that can cause challenges. In this day and age, almost everyone has a mobile phone, but not everyone has credit, or a workable high quality broadband connection sufficient to access the hearing or participate. Indeed, beyond the obvious spatial and technological management of the hearing, there will need to be some means of taking instructions. How can the client do that? Is the barrister prepared to share what will often be a personal mobile number with the lay client (necessary for texting, calling and WhatsApp)? How will emails during the hearing be appropriate? The danger of some detail not being communicated when the participants are not all in the same room is obvious. Of course, one simple potential solution is for your clients all to be in the same room, e.g. a room at the solicitors’ offices, or in your chambers. That brings with it its own challenges, and transfers the court’s responsibility to accommodate the parties onto the parties themselves. When parties are not together, considerable thought should be given as to how instruction- giving is managed, and the advocate must be prepared to ask for time from the court to check that there is nothing more to add. It is, at the very least, the equivalent to turning round to the solicitor to ask if there is anything else to add.

Other difficulties to be navigated include the ability to intervene in a hearing. In  a court- room, there may be occasions (one hopes, limited) where the advocate considers it necessary to object, or interject. That would normally be done by standing up and saying something. The ability to do that in a hearing where the advocates are remote from each other and from the judge is limited. This can mean that evidence is introduced, or submissions made, in circumstances where it might have been opposed. Probably, judges have little interest in addressing this, as it is in their interests for hearings to operate like that. But it is something that may mean that a tactic has to be finessed for being able to make interventions.

Also, what is obviously lost in an online hearing is the looking the judge or court in the eye. I addressed the metaphorical concerns around that in my Counsel article, but there are practical issues too. Where, for instance, a hearing is being conducted online, there will be various bundles of materials, and those will be being read on at least one screen. It obviously makes sense to have the judge and the hearing on another screen, and the instinct is to look at the screen, particularly the one with the hearing taking place.  However, looking at the judge on the screen means, ironically, NOT looking at the judge. In order to look at the judge, the advocate must look at the camera. It is almost impossible to reconfigure the camera’s location for each hearing, or type of hearing that one does. Different video platforms operate differently in where they place the participants, and that is before the court itself starts its own configuration. Accordingly, there is attention to be paid on how the normal rapport of eye contact is to be maintained through making submissions or asking questions of witnesses at a remote hearing.

There has not yet been sufficient research done on the extent to which this actually has a practical effect, as opposed to just being an advocate’s self-importance at thinking that the judge must engage with their every word. Which, of course, leads on to other, obvious points about management of technology, organisation of papers and organisation of submissions. That is in relation to printing/ division of submissions.

It may still be the case that the printing out of submissions onto separate pages, or at least, the division of submissions into separate components in a PDF that can be read from one of the screens is a crucial feature of this sort of advocacy. The court has even less ability to gauge what is going on when a barrister is lost in their submissions, or scrolling through screen after screen of material, than it would if the advocate was in court. So the core job of the advocate, being able to deliver submissions in an efficient, clear and fluent way still remains, and for many, having something on paper, printed or handwritten, with notes on may still be the most effective. But it is in this regard that the advocates of the future may be able to steal a march on those more experienced, since by training with technology from the beginning, they are likely to be more natural.

- Stephen Simblet KC

Introduction

The subject matter of this article is the art of cross examination.

As the late great Irving Younger once said, “Most lawyers do it badly all the time. No lawyer, no matter how experienced, does it brilliantly all the time…and no lawyer in the early stages of his or her cross-examination career does it well at all”.

The Purposes of Cross Examination

Before turning to the intricacies of cross-examination, it is necessary to lay some important foundations. Without those foundations, no lawyer will ever be able to master the art.

What are the purposes of cross-examination? In my view, there are three of which you need to be aware.

Firstly, to challenge the evidence of the witness; to put your version of events to the witness where there is a dispute as to what happened. By way of example, let us say that I am cross-examining a witness whose evidence to the Court in chief is that they arrived at work on a particular day at 9.00 am.

My case is that they did not in fact arrive at work until 11.00 am on that particular day. So, what I have to do is challenge that evidence, asking something along the lines of, “Mr Witness, on 10^th July, you did not arrive at work until 11.00 am, did you?”

Challenging the evidence / putting your version of events is also important under the rules of evidence law. If you don’t challenge a contested piece of evidence in cross-examination, you cannot later make comment upon it in your closing speech or submission.

The second purpose of cross-examination is to test the credibility or consistency of the witness. Is this a witness that a judge or jury should believe? Have they been consistent in what their case is at each stage of the process? Where there are such inconsistencies, you as the cross-examiner want to be ready to pounce on them and expose them to the court to the best of your ability.

And the final purpose of cross examination…which may be the most trivial, but in my view is the most important. HAVE FUN!

It is without doubt the best part of advocacy; and on that rare occasion in real life when it works; when you get the witness on the run, or they admit that they have lied, or they admit that they were wrong, there is no greater feeling in the world.

The Ten Commandments of Cross-Examination

So how do you do it? How can you become an effective cross-examiner?

Irving Younger, to whom I have already referred, came up with the solution in the late 1960s when he devised his Ten Commandments of Cross Examination. But, of course, those Commandments are now very old and many of them are out of date. Most of them were geared towards an American audience – and for those of you who have watched American TV legal dramas, you will know that things are done a little differently stateside!

What I have done is stripped out all the outdated and American-esque Commandments and inserted a few new ones of my own. So, all of these Commandments are relevant to cross-examination in both the civil and criminal courts.

My advice to you is simple. NEVER break any of these Commandments in cross-examination. Invariably if you do, your entire world will come crashing down around you.

Commandment 1 – Be Brief

You must be brief. You must be succinct.

I see it almost every day in courtrooms – cross-examinations that go on and on and on.

The wonderful Jennie Oborne, a fellow Bencher of mine at the Inner Temple and worldwide renown advocacy trainer, once drew a very helpful analogy – every time you ask a question of a witness in cross examination, you are handing them a £50 note.

You therefore want to give away as little money as possible! So, focus your mind on what you need to challenge for the purposes of your closing speech or submission, put those points, and stop.

Commandment 2 – One Point Per Question

This goes hand in hand with the First Commandment, but here we delve further into the minutiae of the questions.

The cross-examiner who breaks the Second Commandment might ask the following question of a witness:

Mr Witness, on the 3^rd of March of 2024 you arrived at work at 9.30 am and the first thing you did was park your car in the office car park which is located immediately opposite the office building on the other side of the road and having parked your car, you got out of your car, locked your car and walked the 25 metres or so to the office building, that’s right, isn’t it?

How is the witness supposed to answer this question…if indeed it is a question!

So now we apply the Second Commandment – exactly the same cross examination, but now “one point per question” compliant:

Mr Witness. 3^rd March 2024. You were at work that day?

Yes.

You arrived at work at 9.30 am, did you not?

Yes.

The first thing you did was park your car?

Yes.

You parked your car in the office car park, didn’t you?

Yes.

The office car park is located opposite the office building?

Yes.

On the other side of the road?

Yes.

Having parked your car, you got out of your car, didn’t you?

Yes.

You locked your car?

Yes.

Then you walked the 25 metres or so to the office building?

Yes.

Why is this Second Commandment so important?

Two main reasons – firstly, you will retain total control of the witness. They are being asked about one thing and one thing only. It therefore gives the witness little wriggle room to avoid the question.

Secondly, the shorter the question you ask, the shorter the answer the witness will be minded to give.

So, keep all of your questions as short as they can possibly be and try and ensure that each question only contains one point or one piece of information.

Commandment 3 – Simple Language; Plain Words

You must acquire the skill of using simple language and plain words.

Death to the cross examiner is where a question is put and the witness responds, “Eh? What? Don’t understand! What are you on?”.

In my experience, when a witness gives that type of response, the fault is not that of the witness. The fault lies with the advocate because they have not asked the question in a simple enough way for the witness to be able to understand it and answer it.

So, once you have all your questions as short as they can possibly be (in compliance with the Second Commandment), look at the language that you have used. If you see a particularly complex or flowery word, change it.

Keep the language of your questions as simple as it can possibly be.

Commandment 4 – ONLY Leading Questions

A bit of revision.

What is the rule of evidence law with regard to the types of question that an advocate can ask in an examination in chief? No leading questions.

But we are concerned with cross examination. What is the rule of evidence law with regard to the types of question an advocate can ask in cross examination? Leading questions are permitted. You are permitted in cross examination to ask a leading question, which will elicit a yes/no answer.

Note, however, how the Fourth Commandment goes beyond that rule of evidence law. If the rule of evidence law is that leading questions are permitted, I am suggesting to you that you will ONLY ask leading questions in cross examination.

The dangers of asking a non-leading question in cross examination can be catastrophic. Example:

You live in London, do you not?

Yes.

Before that, you lived in Maidstone?

Yes.

Why did you move from Maidstone to London?

Well, a number of reasons actually…

By asking that “why” question, the cross examiner passes the reins of control to the witness to enable them to say whatever they wish to say – and in cross examination, it is not the advocate’s job to let the witness say what they want to say.

You make them say what you want them to say – and you achieve this by sticking to leading questions. Therefore, in the example above, the advocate should have done their research and have in mind the reason why the witness moved from Maidstone to London, and it should be put in leading form:

You live in London, do you not?

Yes.

Before that, you lived in Maidstone?

Yes.

And the reason you moved from Maidstone to London was for work related matters? 

Yes.

Commandment 5 – Listen To the Answer

From time to time, witnesses will say the most extraordinary things – and invariably these are not picked up by the advocate because the advocate is not listening to the answer.

Of course, if your cross examination is being conducted in accordance with the Fourth Commandment and you are only asking leading questions (thereby limiting the answers of the witness to yes/no), it will be easy to listen to those one-word answers.

However, where a witness does seek to elaborate on their answer, always make sure you take a careful note of what the witness says – it may be useful ammunition for you to deploy to show that the witness has been inconsistent in their evidence.

Commandment 6 – Don’t Argue with The Witness

Aside from being unprofessional, arguing with a witness does not advance matters any further. It also has the effect of damaging your reputation and credibility with your judge.

Arguing with a witness, in my experience, usually arises in two different scenarios.

Firstly, what I call the “tennis match” cross examination. Example:

On 23^rd March 2024, you arrived at work at 10 am, did you not?

No, I didn’t.

Yes, you did…

No, I didn’t.

Yes, you did!

NO, I DIDN’T!

And so on, and so forth and the cross examination turns into the advocate and witness batting a ball across a tennis net at each other. The advocate has put the point of challenge. The witness has answered it. Unless the advocate has further evidence to put to the witness to challenge the time of arrival at work, the advocate should move on.

The second arena in which arguing with a witness arises is where the cross examiner forgets that this is an exercise in cross examination…and turns it into an exercise of examining crossly!

You will never enter a cross examination with the deliberate purpose or objective of being nasty to the witness, being angry with the witness or, as I unfortunately observed on one occasion, an advocate actively discriminating against a witness in cross examination by reason of one of the protected characteristics in the Equality Act 2010.

Of course, you may have to be firm with a witness. That is totally permissible, but your cross examination should never descend into argument.

Commandment 7 – Avoid Repetition

Remember my first purpose of cross examination – to challenge the evidence of the witness and to put your version of events to the witness.

Many advocates forget this fundamental purpose – and simply through a series of leading questions repeats the evidence of the witness in chief, whether what they have said in chief orally in a criminal case or what is set out in their witness statement in a civil case.

Simply repeating the evidence of the witness through a series of leading questions achieves nothing. It wastes time.

Challenge the evidence. Put your version of the evidence to the witness. Don’t simply repeat it.

Commandment 8 – Never Ask a Witness to Explain Anything

This, of course, goes hand in hand with the Fourth Commandment.

If you are only asking leading questions, you will never ask a witness, “How come? How can that be? Explain.”

We have already seen an example of this earlier in this article. Remember when the advocate asked the witness why they moved from Maidstone to London. That is tantamount to asking for an explanation – and as we have already seen, it passes the reins of control to the witness to allow them to say whatever they want to say.

There is a further reason why you should never ask a witness to explain anything. In my experience, if you ask a witness to explain something, they will do exactly what you told them to do. They will explain it! And in so doing dig themselves out of whatever hole or trap in which you were seeking to place them.

Commandment 9 – Never Ask a Question to Which You Do Not Already Know the Answer

This is an old Commandment, but it is still a very important one.

It is designed to stop you going fishing in cross examination. It is further designed to stop you venturing into territory that you have not pre-planned or pre-prepared.

Example – a witness says something ludicrous in response to one of your questions in cross examination.

No matter how curious you may be, don’t start exploring it. You are going to be asking questions that you have not pre-prepared and have no real idea of how the witness is going to answer those questions.

Therefore, when preparing for a cross examination, make sure that you know in advance how the witness is going to answer the question.

Commandment 10 – Avoid the One Question Too Many

This is something that will come with experience.

You need to develop an appreciation of when the job is done and that you have asked all the questions that you needed to ask of your witness for the purposes of your closing arguments.

Very often, advocates will ask one more question than they actually need to. Invariably, it is a non-leading question and allows the witness to destroy everything that the advocate has thus far achieved in the cross examination.

Get into the habit of marrying up what you are going to say in your closing speech or submission with the content of your cross examination and don’t stray beyond that.

Conclusion

Well, there we are.

Those are the Ten Commandments of Cross Examination.

Put them into practice, and good luck.

- Alastair Hodge, Barrister

Mr. Justice Morley KC has practiced as a barrister from London since 1990, originally in all aspects of criminal law (mostly murder, rape, drugs, and financial crimes), prosecuting and defending. From 2005, he became a well-known figure on the international circuit, practicing in genocide, war crimes, crimes against humanity, and international terrorism, where following a period of pro bono work from October 2004, assisting the defense of Slobodan Milosevic at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, he was then in Arusha, Tanzania from March 2005, before Sir Dennis Byron PC (formerly CJ of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court, and later president of the Caribbean Court of Justice), assisting the UN to prosecute the 1994 Rwandan genocide of the Tutsi by the Hutu at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, where he was Trial Counsel in four cases concerning six leading defendants. He took Silk in April 2009, and was then appointed senior trial counsel at the UN Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague as the tribunal opened, where he led marshalling the evidence and writing the indictment, confirmed in June 2011, against the alleged assassins from Hezbollah in 2005 of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Rafik Hariri. In January 2013, until his appointment to the Bench in 2016, Mr Justice Morley returned to domestic practice in London, mostly prosecuting and defending in murder.

He has worked and taught in more than 40 jurisdictions and assisted visiting practitioners and judges from a further 20, on advocacy skills, criminal law procedures, financial crime and international criminal law.  He is also an established advocacy teacher, both nationally and internationally, in particular on vulnerable witnesses, and his book The Devil’s Advocate is currently a worldwide bestselling book on advocacy skills.

In November 2016, he was appointed to High Court Bench of the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court to the criminal division on Antigua & Barbuda until March 2021, and to all matters on Montserrat until November 2023. In 2021, he was further appointed to St Kitts where he is the Senior Judge. Morley J has been Co-Chair of the ECSC Sentencing Guidelines Advisory Committee since 2017, was from 2019 the dedicated judge to develop the regional ‘model court’ for sexual offences, and from January 2024 was appointed a Vice-Chair of the ECSC Judicial Education Institute. In his spare time, he enjoys sailing around the Caribbean islands.

In this article, I will explore differences I have observed in practice between courts in the Caribbean and in England & Wales, by which I mean mostly London and the South-Eastern Circuit where I practiced in criminal law for many years.

Since November 2016, I have been a High Court Judge in the paradise Antilles, appointed to the Eastern Caribbean Supreme Court (ECSC), which oversees nine island nations, from north to south being the British Virgin Islands, Anguilla, St Kitts & Nevis, Antigua & Barbuda, Montserrat, Dominica, St Lucia, Grenada, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. There is also great legal connectivity with Jamaica, Turks & Caicos, Belize, Trinidad, Guyana, Barbados, and Trinidad & Tobago.

Specifically I have become the senior Judge on Antigua & Barbuda during 2016-2021, and then the same on St Kitts & Nevis since, sitting on both almost wholly in crime, and in parallel the designated Judge on Montserrat during 2016-2023, sitting four months a year in not only crime but also in civil matters of every type of law, including wills, land, trusts, administrative, contract, divorce, ancillary relief, childcare, prison, employment, pensions, planning, debt recovery and civil fraud.

Advocates in my court come largely from two sources of training. First, there is the local LLB from the University of the West Indies which has campuses in various islands, notably teaching law on Trinidad at St Augustine, Jamaica at Mona, and Barbados at Cave Hill, with then law school for practitioners at the Hugh Wooding School on Trinidad and the Norman Manley School in Jamaica. These are strong academically, producing young lawyers of high quality. Then second, there is the UK LLB, or equivalent, following with law school variously, and Call to the Bar at one of the four Inns of Court, where nationals of the ECSC islands, though trained in UK law, can then become admitted to the local Caribbean Bar as birthright, having had training in the Common Law.

Call to the Bar for either candidate involves an application to the High Court under the relevant local Legal Profession Act, disclosing academic certificates, proof of nationality, good character, and payment of a modest fee, leading to an individual appearance, rather than in large numbers as in London, and if successful there follows the oath to serve the law and court, with usually much jubilation and emotional speeches, as friends and family all attend to urge on the applicant.

There is no formal pupillage, which is a significant weakness. Many will choose to begin work in a firm, billing and earning, and will learn alongside a senior, who will teach good practice and the proprieties, where firms are usually small, with perhaps up to three practicing lawyers, and support staff; such training is in a sense an equivalent to pupillage before usually setting out on their own.

However, some others just launch themselves into practice, and take on cases of every level of complexity, having a go at getting it right, knowing the court will usually prefer to have a lawyer, even if inexperienced, than a likely confused and more argumentative litigant-in-person. Up to a point this may be so, but it can create court frustrations where an inexperienced lawyer is no different, with the added kudos of wearing counsel’s gown.

Further, most islands have no legal aid, apart from for murder, and so young lawyers in crime will often offer their inexperience for little or no fee to desperate defendants as better than not having a lawyer, and whose cases then provide opportunity to learn.

And after graduating, and Call, there is thereafter no requirement to do continuing legal education (CLE).

For my part, I would like to see every new law school graduate required to do a year with a senior, like pupillage, not simply as something optional, who then writes a court report, perhaps no longer than two pages, approving a Call candidate, to be added to the Call papers, before then being admitted to practice by the High Court; while after, there should be annual CLE, to include formal advocacy training, to hone skills and keep counsel up-to-date.

More, there being no pupillage requirement, I would like to see if an informal network of existing practitioners in the UK and through the Caribbean, of at least seven years’ experience, taking an interest in keeping high standards, being in active advocacy, might sponsor Caribbean new practitioners of up to 3 years, already called, optionally to spend maybe 6 months with them, to attend court, like in a first-six pupillage. In this way, a new Caribbean advocate would gain a wider perspective of how to do the job better, as an island Bar is usually quite small, and so variety in practice styles is limited, meaning bad practices can become ingrained and there is little variety to study from which to glean a better approach.

As for opportunities for UK practitioners, there is sometimes provision to be admitted to an island Bar for a limited period if a specific expertise is required, not available locally, and there can be contract employment as Crown counsel, in the office of the Attorney General or Director of Public Prosecutions. Positions are usually advertised, but the quickest route would be to attend a regional conference and establish contacts who may then recruit.

Proccedings have the same formalities as in the UK, though the wig is not worn, originally as too hot when there was no a/c, and more recently as a sign of independence from the EW Bar, there being great local pride in how the regional Bar has progressed, separate from the Inns.

The highest court for many islands is still the Privy Council sitting in London, though more recently there has been the emergence of the Caribbean Court of Justice (CCJ), based in Trinidad, which has replaced the Privy Council for Barbados, Belize, Dominica, Guyana and Saint Lucia.

There is unfortunately no robing-room culture, despite this judge making efforts to import one, so there is usually limited interaction between the opposing advocates except in the heat of courtroom battle. This tends to mean little is agreed, leading often to unnecessary arguments on matters not much in issue, with evidence called of no case consequence but routinely challenged just because it is called.

While strong records are kept of interaction with clients in civil proceedings, in criminal cases there are often no formal proofs of defence evidence, leading to maximum ‘flexibility’ as to how the defence is run, often several in parallel, with the defence position sometimes shifting as evidence goes on the record. It is not uncommon for an advocate at trial to be testing a crime did not happen, if it did a defendant was not there, if he was he was not involved, if involved he was trying to help, and if not was acting in self-defence, all simultaneously, challenging everything as unreliable, and testing every avenue of possibility. Often no evidence is then called by the defence. This has led to prosecutors being good at examination in chief but weak in cross-examination skills as they do it so seldom, and vice versa for the defence advocates, where there is not the tradition of mixed practice doing both prosecuting and defending, so an advocate is usually one or the other, like in the US.

As to standards, advocates of little Call are often doing big cases, including capital cases, the death penalty in theory being still available in much of the Caribbean. A prosecution opening speech is usually not more than 15 mins, and closing speeches are seldom longer than 40 mins, no matter how long or complicated the case. There is no tradition of an opening note, though is now being encouraged by this judge, while written submissions on legal points are usually of good quality. Advocates arrive in court often as the court sits, rather than earlier, there being nowhere to gather in the court complex, though this is being slowly changed. And until recently, there was not much court case management, the Bench being reactive not proactive, though this is also changing, in part led by this judge, where more judges now exercise more control over their list, as to what needs to be heard, rather than waiting for the Registrar and the Attorney General or DPP to decide what to call on.

As to regulation of advocates, while there is a code of conduct similar to the UK, there is no Bar Standards Board, though every island has a Bar Association, and there is also an overarching Bar body for the region. However, it is widely remarked the local bodies exercise little discipline; of perhaps interest, this judge has referred one advocate for paying off a rape victim without result; a second lawyer continued practice in my court though under charge for fraud, being later jailed; a third practiced, though charged for jury tampering and child sexual exploitation, also later jailed; and a fourth is practicing though under charge for perverting, and attempts to convene an effective hearing before judges to determine if he should continue to appear until tried was resisted by the local bar. Where an advocate is dishonest, it appears the likely only effective remedy is contempt proceedings, though rarely instituted as difficult to prove, or if an advocate is incompetent, there may be appeal by another counsel to the Court of Appeal, though this judge knows of no examples. In sum, weak or mischievous counsel seem for now not much accountable, though it is expected this will change.

Delays in cases have been troubling, with many in custody for several years before trial, for offences like burglary not just murder, while much progress is now being made shortening trial-wait through active control of the docket. Judicial intervention has grown to reduce poor advocacy, like bullying a witness, or theatrics, particularly in sexual offence cases, with model guidelines introduced in 2019 regionally, in part by this judge, to create greater sensitivity to how witnesses experience trial. Videolink and screens for vulnerable witnesses is a growing trend, though not yet universal through the islands. It is not uncommon to have a child in the court witness box, though some islands, not many, have introduced in child cases videoed police interviews as evidence in chief as in the UK.

Every island has its own set of laws, with variations, so sitting in three jurisdictions, being Antigua, Montserrat and St Kitts, I have had to become familiar with local legislation, for example with slightly differing definitions of unlawful sexual intercourse, different maxima for causing grievous bodily harm or robbery, and different sentencing options, including in mental health cases. Sentencing guidelines have been introduced since 2019, co-chaired by this judge, which have revolutionized plea bargaining, so that pleas of guilty are now more common, when in earlier times no one pleaded to anything for fear of sentencing which was without structure and incomprehensible to the advocates, causing everything to have to be tried, which then contributed to delays as there was too much trial work in the system.

In my 8 years, I have tried many more murder cases than I did as counsel in 28 years. I have seen much change in the Caribbean, though there is still much to be pursued. What is clear is life here at the Bar is vibrant with many extraordinary cases, and while case files may be thinner, with fewer witnesses, where police resources are more stretched, and so files may not be as thick as in London, the issues can be every bit as challenging and dramatic.

Though there may be much more to say and in more detail about local triumphs and failings, it is important to see many lawyers are excellent, well-motivated, with morale high as there is much improvement afoot, so that this is the best judge job in the world, with many warm, intelligent and motivated colleagues on the Bench and at the Bar. And there is always the wonderful Caribbean Sea to sail at weekends.