I want to address two topics following the Occupy London decision. One touches on the legal impact of the decision and one considers lessons from the case for other campaigners.

The Occupy London campers were, yesterday, refused permission to appeal by the Court of Appeal, with Lord Neuberger MR presiding, from the injunctions and possession orders that were granted by Lindblom J on 18 January 2012. This means that the Corporation of London can now enforce these orders as soon as they want. No date is yet set for enforcement and, apparently for operational reasons, the Corporation of London is refusing to tell the campers when steps will begin.

Amongst the various reasons given for refusing permission to appeal the court considered that the onus was on the parties to set out all the different ways that relief could be granted to a claimant causing the least intrusion to the campers’ engaged article 10 and article 11 rights. It seems that the Court of Appeal did not accept that there was a requirement, during a proportionality trial, for the trial judge to independently reach a view on what is the least intrusive measure regardless of the suggestions made by the parties. Perhaps this part of the Court of Appeal’s decision will be revisited in future cases. That’s the interesting bit for lawyers.

What are the lessons for campaigners?

The Occupy Movement has been highly effective as a way of raising issues in the national consciousness. It seems that the concerns the Occupy Movement have resonated with the majority of people in Britain and around the world but what I want to focus on now is not the message but the form of the message; not the complaints but the way of bringing forward those complaints. By assembling in a nationally important place and by expressing views on a particular topic campaigners aim to generate publicity for their given message. A march through London or a rally in Trafalgar Square generates a certain amount of publicity. The occupation of an important space appears to have generated far more publicity. It has certainly generated more publicity than if each of the Occupy London campers had raised their issues of concern at the surgery of their individual constituency MP. The occupation generated global media interest which then gave the campers lots of opportunities to promote their message; they would not have had as many opportunities without the occupation.

I discussed the lessons for campaigners on the Radio 4 PM programme yesterday with the City of London MP Mark Field – click above for the 7 day link.

When I started my career at the Bar back in 1996, my pupil supervisor who was by then a jaded criminal practitioner, told me among other things that I was joining a dying profession. Apart from making me feel a bit like a Jedi Knight – it did cause me to worry a little. But only a little. As the years passed and I became focussed on the progression of my career almost to the exclusion of everything else, I eventually forgot those words, filing them away with other snippets of advice like, “don’t wear trouser suits” and, the perhaps more dubious: “never eat while your jury is out”.

I happily carried on: specialising in crime up and down the country and generally ignoring the doom and gloom stories I would at times overhear in the robing room. One regular warning came from a barrister, many more years call than me who, every time I saw him, usually in the barristers’ mess at Snaresbrook Crown Court, would march up to me and say in a mock cross voice “what are you doing here? Haven’t I told you to leave crime and do something else?” I would always look straight back at him and declare “but I love it!” The truth was at that time I could not imagine another existence. There I was, the daughter of a mechanic and a dress-maker, going into battle against some of the top legal minds in the country. I was living my dream – if you exclude the one about co-starring with Irene Cara in “Fame”.

Years passed and then along came Sir David Clementi’s review published at the end of 2004 with recommendations aimed at tighter regulation of the legal profession. By this time I was married with two small children, and although the writing was clearly marked on the wall – particularly in relation to the future of the Criminal Bar – I again chose to ignore it. Adopting that time-honoured approach of some at the Bar – to bury one’s head in the sand.

Hot on the heels of Clementi came the Carter Review in 2005. Bringing with it sweeping recommendations for changes to Legal Aid procurement in criminal cases and other areas of law. I began to sit up and take notice. In an interview with BBC News London around that time, I commented that one of the perhaps unintended effects of the reform would be the flight of talented lawyers to other areas of law, and a decrease in the number of minority barristers staying within the profession. Challenges were mounted against the reforms to Legal Aid that followed the 2005 Review; but the notion of access to justice free to all at the point of entry, had been struck a death blow.

A third child and an economic recession or two later, and my hand was finally forced. 2009 was crunch time. Do I leave the profession that I had grown to love (albeit in an unrequited way) to seek a 9 to 5 with a guaranteed income, holiday pay, paid sick leave and with a decent pension? Or do I stay. I realised, with a heavy heart that there was no future for the publicly funded Criminal Bar in particular and, some would say, the publicly funded Bar in general. But in spite of the fact that all arrows pointed clearly towards the “Exit” signs, I chose, rather like the captain of the Titanic and unlike, it seems, the captain of the Costa Concordia, to stay on at the Bar. That is where Pro Bono work came in.

I had a long history of working in the volunteer sector: working part-time in an advice centre advising, in the main, recent immigrants to this country from theCaribbean. Having been a pupil, working long hours for little or no pay was not an entirely new concept to me. However, I now considered doing pro bono work not only for the good of the community (the literal translation of the term), but to help me make a career change.

There are many advantages to doing pro bono work; other than helping one to learn a new area of law. There is the obvious feel-good factor that goes along with doing any good deed. I have found that at times, in sharp contrast to my paying clients, pro bono clients are usually very grateful and demonstratively so, for the help they receive.

There is the opportunity to argue novel and at times important points of law in cases that for one reason or another, you would never have had the opportunity to argue, but for the client’s lack of finances.

And so then to 2010. At the end of last year Kenneth Clarke announced a plan to reduce the Legal Aid budget by £350 million. And although those plans appear to have been put on hold at the moment, this is little more than a stay of execution. Lady Justice will, I’m afraid have her day in the gallows. This will undoubtedly lead to more and more litigants seeking pro bono advice and representation.

Courts and Tribunals have already begun to feel the effects of past cuts to the Legal Aid budget. Although there will be the immediate benefit of easing the pressure on the public purse; there will also ultimately be a heavy price to pay as a result of those proposed cuts. As Joe Public is forced to go it alone and navigate, captainless, through the sea of litigation, there will be more cases with little merit coming before the courts and more cases that will take longer to hear due the absence of good and timely legal advice.

Finally then, I guess the reason I have been asked to address the Hall – other than to strike fear into the hearts of new barristers and, as living breathing proof that not all barristers are middle aged, white males (although I am middle aged) – is that I am evidence that the Bar has a future as a true specialist advocate referral profession. And, incidentally to urge every one of you, if you are not doing so already, to engage in pro bono work. Not just at the beginning of your career but throughout your career. And to encourage you, in some small or perhaps even big way, to give back to the communities in which you live.

In the course of giving his judgment in the St Paul’s Occupy London case Lindbolm J said this:

“No one has doubted, or could, the significance of the causes the defendants promote, or the sincerity and passion with which they are doing this.”

But despite what I would suggest is the obvious wider importance of the movement, can it be said that the legal aspects of the case broke new ground? Or was it a question of applying well-settled principles to a highly-publicised set of facts?

As is now well-known, the City of London Corporation sought a possession order against the St Paul’s protestors so as to remove the encampment of tents from various areas immediately outside the cathedral. As the judge pointed out, much of the evidence was not in dispute, for example, that the camp caused an obstruction of the highway, albeit not one which prevented the passage of pedestrians. The judge went on to find that the occupation amounted to an unreasonable obstruction of the highway. It constituted an “indefinite” rather than “transitory” obstruction and thereby deprived the public of the use of the highway. The crucial issue, therefore, was whether the defendants could, based on Articles 10 and 11 of the European Convention (the rights to freedom of expression and freedom of assembly) trump the Corporation’s otherwise unqualified right to possession.

The judge decided that the factors in favour of granting a remedy to the Corporation outweighed the rights of the protestors for a number of reasons:

• The continued presence of the protest camp was at odds with the wide powers granted by Parliament to local authorities insofar as highways were concerned.
• The activities of Occupy London interfered substantially with the Article 9 rights of those who wished to worship in the cathedral.
• The camp had adversely impacted upon the local drainage system, caused nuisance through both noise and smell and damaged the trade of local businesses, as well as causing an increase in anti-social activity.
• The protestors had been given sufficient time to make their point and, if the court did not intervene, there would be no set date for their removal.

Ultimately, therefore, the judge held, applying well-established principles from the Court of Human Rights, that the interference with the protestors’ rights was in accordance with a pressing social need. Furthermore, the order sought, which was to remove the camp and to prevent it from being re-established in the vicinity of the cathedral, was proportionate.

It is of note that the judge considered that the factors in favour of the Corporation “easily” outweighed the counter-arguments and, furthermore, viewed the claimant’s case as “unusually persuasive”. From a purely legalistic point of view, I would suggest that the result was relatively unremarkable. The judge made findings of fact in favour of the Corporation and decided that the balance fell clearly on its side.

Nevertheless, there are important political and social ramifications. The judge was keen to stress that it was not his role to decide any wider questions but, as the growth of public law has illustrated, it is almost impossible for the courts not to become involved in the larger issues raised by cases of this type. To give just one example, the judge’s order prohibits anybody from conducting any protest, even a transitory one, outside St Paul’s if that person erects a symbolic tent. This is despite the fact that the Corporation expressly disavowed any suggestion that it was seeking to curtail limited protest. Is not the width of such an order a political statement in itself, suggesting that property rights trump those of peaceful protest?

The protestors are seeking permission to appeal and have until 25th January to do so. It seems that the crux of their argument will be that the judge failed to properly address the proportionality issue. In other words, was the order obtained by the Corporation the least intrusive means of dealing with the conduct of the protestors, bearing in mind their Convention rights? It must be at least arguable that the order is too wide, given the example above, and there is a real danger that it will prevent others from protesting, even when they are not causing any harm. If nothing else, the Occupy movement has illustrated how important it is that we need to jealously guard our right to protest and, for this reason, it is to be hoped that the Court of Appeal decides to consider the issue further.

It seems to me important to say something about the prosecution of Stephen Lawrence’s killers and the jury’s verdicts. Not because everyone is talking about it right now but because I began my legal career some 15 years ago talking about it and almost nothing else. Barristers fromGarden Courtplayed a significant role in the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry which was announced in 1997 – with Sir William Macpherson’s report completed in 1999. Ian Macdonald QC andRajiv Menon(now QC) were instructed on behalf of Duwayne Brookes whilstCourtenay Griffiths(now QC) and I were instructed on behalf of the Commission for Racial Equality (CRE) (although in the end unforeseen circumstances meant that Courtenay was unable to do the case). It was where I conducted my first ever cross-examination. We sat through many months of evidence, some fascinating, some heart-breaking, some disappointing. All of us learnt lessons – both political and personal. By all of us I mean all of us lawyers, Sir William Macpherson himself, the media circus, the police and the general public. Nothing has been the same since on many levels. Ironically most of us human rights lawyers were against Machpherson’s recommendation that the double jeopardy should be re-written. It would, we thought, be used against the very community that the police had historically failed to protect.

And here we are now celebrating justice. Somewhat uncomfortably. Because it is that very change in the law that allowed one of the suspects (Gary Dobson) to be prosecuted and convicted all these years later. Although not the first to be convicted under the 2003 Act (which came into force in 2005), it is both ironic and significant that Dobson’s failed prosecution resulted in a change in the law that was ultimately used against him. Have I changed my mind about this law? It is worth remembering that the failed prosecution in Stephen Lawrence’s case was brought privately by anguished parents and many have said it was a political act; a prosecution brought in the knowledge that it was bound to fail. But it kept the case alive.

Like the rest of the nation I am delighted that Stephen’s parents have finally got some justice. But have I changed my mind about the abrogation of the double jeopardy rule? No, I think not. Despite the relatively high statutory test the DPP has to satisfy to re-try an acquitted person, the new law also gives the police wide powers to re-investigate and re-arrest acquitted persons with the DPP’s permission – without limit of time. In my view, it remains a draconian law despite the long overdue conviction of a racist murderer.

In comments widely reported in The Independent, The Guardian and on Sky News, Michael reminded readers and viewers that both murderers are on life sentences and that the tariffs handed down are the minimum terms that must be served in prison.

“What I would be concerned about from the public’s point of view is that, if we start saying these sentences are woefully low, the implication is that the judge has taken some kind of sympathy with the murderers and he has not at all.”

He described the trial judge, Mr Justice Treacy, a member of the Sentencing Council which sets guidelines for judges, as “a very solid, safe pair of hands”.

He went on to say that judges “don’t have a huge deal of discretion” in sentencing as they have to be guided by statutory law and common sense in order to avoid sentences being overturned on appeal.

He reminded the public that for serious crimes such as murder, all the evidence available has shown that harsher sentences, regrettably, do not act as a deterrent.

“If the sentence for parking on a double yellow line was life imprisonment, that will work. But it does not for murder. Murderers are either terrorists, in other words professional killers, who would like to be hung so they can be martyrs, or one of the vast majority who are not thinking about it [sentencing] at all. If racism is endemic within society, it’s not going to be cured by racist murderers being sent away for life.”

Gary Dobson was sentenced to at least 15 years 2 months in prison and David Norris at least 14 years 3 months before they could be considered for release.

The full debate can be accessed by here.

Here are some extracts which demonstrate the level of the Lords’ opposition to the proposed cuts in legal aid:

Lord Phillips of Sudbury (co-founder in 1971 of the Legal Action Group) stated:

I believe that if we legislate rights and benefits for our less advantaged citizens, knowing that they will not be taken advantage of because we do not have the wherewithal to enable the people who need those benefits to access them, we are engaged in an organised hypocrisy. We undermine this place and democracy. We add to citizen disenchantment and to a social context which I believe is one we should all worry greatly about – a context which I suggest showed at least one aspect of itself in the riots a few months ago.

…What are we doing? We know the suffering, the disenchantment and the cynicism that will follow. We have made no attempt to calculate the financial costs in social or other terms. We know that these problems come in clusters and that if a man is not given advice on a housing problem because it is now out of scope, that may lead to an eviction order in a court, which in turn will lead to a plethora of social security and welfare engagements…Tens of thousands of pounds could be involved for the saving of a piece of advice by a CAB or a solicitor – God bless him if he is still doing this kind of work.

Let us not forget either that the cost of this work is by the standards of most solicitors puny. It is a £150 fixed fee for every case they take on. A City solicitor charges £150 for 10 or 15 minutes of his precious time.

Baroness Kennedy (leading civil rights barrister):

I have to say that most of my life has been spent doing legal aid cases, and I take pride in that. I do not feel that it is the sad end of the work that we do. I think that it is about the most precious and important work that we do.

Baroness King of Bow:

My Lords, this House knows that when a Bill is put before it, the Government of the day usually get some of the legislation right and some wrong. But the wrongs contained in this Bill, whether by accident or design, are monumentally devastating. They cannot be made good by the benign aspects of the Bill or written off as collateral damage to be borne by British citizens in times of austerity. The Bill undermines the very compact between citizen and state. Were it to become law, British citizens who cannot afford a lawyer will effectively lose fundamental rights they have.

Lord Elystan-Morgan:

Unless a Government of the future pass a one-clause Bill to abolish legal aid completely, the contents of this Bill and the proposals surrounding them must constitute the most savage and most deadly attack upon the institution of legal aid in the 62 years of its existence.

Baroness Mallalieu:

We may all have to stomach many unpalatable cuts in these difficult times but we would be mad to dismantle the very structure of one of the pillars of our constitution which goes to the essence of fairness in our society and respect for the rule of law.

The Bill will move on to the Committee stage in the House of Lords on 20^th December 2011.

There is still time for you to influence the debate. Join the Justice for All campaign. Visit http://www.justice-for-all.org.uk/ for more information on how to lobby Peers and Members of Parliament and help ensure that legal aid is preserved for those most disadvantaged members of our society.

Marc Willers.

This is what being at Garden Court does to your eyes.

The Solidaritea team hard at work

Marchers getting their Solidaritea

And our very own Liz Davies (above) and Henry Blaxland (below, centre)

We have previously commented (here and here) on the coalition government’s previously announced reforms of employment law. Today, Vince Cable has given a lengthy speech which records the recognition by the OECD, hardly an agitator for employee rights, that the UK already has one of the “most effective and lightly regulated labour markets among developed economies”. Despite this, Dr Cable, and presumably his colleagues in government, feel that there is an even greater need for the sort of reforms requested by the likes of the CBI. And, in case you think I exaggerate in suggesting that this is a business-driven agenda, you can read the speech for yourself and note the frequency with which Dr Cable comments on the need to listen to those particular interest groups.

So, what we have is an obligation upon all claimants to take their claim to ACAS, prior to it being considered by a Tribunal, the possibility of a “Rapid Resolution scheme”, with some cases not going to a Tribunal at all, and the novel suggestion of “protected conversations” (of which more later). And we should not forget the “root and branch review of the rules governing employment tribunals”. There is, of course, no evidence to suggest that any of these proposed changes, as well as the previously announced increase in the qualifying period to claim unfair dismissal, will actually help create jobs or reduce burdens on business. But they do illustrate the almost limitless desire of this government to be seen to be doing something, even if there is no real understanding of how it will make any real difference.

It is apparent that the aim of the reforms is to reduce the rights available to potential claimants, since government sees that as the way in which the costs associated with a system of employment tribunals can be reduced. Yet, the longest and most complex cases involve allegations of discrimination and, in recent years, the part-time worker claims involving thousands of employees across the country. None of these can realistically be affected by Dr Cable’s suggestions. And one will search in vain in his speech for any mention of the emotional and financial cost visited upon employees who are treated badly at work, lack employment security and are ineligible for legal aid so as to be able to enforce their rights.

So, how about this concept of “protected conversations”? The idea behind this, apparently, is to “allow employers to raise issues such as poor performance or retirement plans in an open way, free from the worry it will be used as evidence in a subsequent tribunal claim.” There are, to put it politely, numerous problems with this. Any good employer will of course raise any concerns with employees in a way that will make it impossible for the employer to be viewed in a negative light subsequently. And since it is a requirement of much of employment law that concerns be raised with an employee prior to a decision about his or her future being made, it is difficult to see why an employer would not want an employment tribunal to know about such conversations. The problems with the proposed “protected conversations” are manifold. How does a court decide whether a “conversation” is indeed “protected”? Will some formality be required in order to come within such a category? And what about abusive behaviour by employer or employee in such a conversation? The difficulties that the courts have had in defining the boundaries of legal professional privilege are well-known. It is hard to see the justification for creating yet a further class of privileged discussions.

As with much of this government’s reform agenda, and, to be fair, that of previous governments, it seems as though individual ministers are more concerned about leaving their mark than properly thinking through proposals. With Dr Cable’s suggestions, there will at least be some consultation. However, it seems as though the tone of the forthcoming discussion around workers’ rights has been set. And yet again, it is the interests of business that are in the ascendency.

The medieval practice of determining guilt or innocence by subjecting the accused to trial by ordeal has happily long since passed. However, following the conviction of Levi Bellfield for the murder of Milly Dowler, the victim’s family described their experience of the trial as an ordeal and said that they had paid “too high a price” for the conviction. In the ensuing media and, inevitable, political storm the criminal justice system came in for intense criticism, much of it centred on a claim that the trial process is balanced unfairly in favour of the rights of the accused over the rights of victims of crime and witnesses.

Are victims and witnesses now exposed to a modern-day trial by ordeal and if so, what, if anything, should be done about it?

Abduction and Murder

On 21 March 2002, 13-year old Amanda “Milly” Dowler left school to take a train home. She decided to stop at the station café with her friends. After telephoning her father to say she would be home in half an hour, Milly left the café on foot. She was last seen walking along a main road in the direction of her home. She never arrived. That evening, her parents reported her missing to the police and there followed a nationwide missing person search. At first the police enquiry focused on whether Milly may have run away but as the weeks and months passed, fears grew that she had been killed. Six months after her disappearance, those fears were confirmed as Milly’s decomposed remains were discovered in Yateley Heath Woods in Hampshire.

The Evidence

Levi Bellfield’s trial for the kidnap and murder of Milly began at the Central Criminal Court before Mr. Justice Wilkie and a jury on 10 May this year. The Crown had a strong circumstantial case, including evidence that Bellfield:

• Occupied a flat within metres of the spot that Milly was last seen alive; and
• Attempted to kidnap a young woman the day before Milly was last seen alive and, in the two years thereafter, in circumstances which bore a striking similarity to Milly’s disappearance, abducted and murdered two young women and attempted to murder a third.

The issues boiled down to this: if Bellfield was not responsible for Milly’s murder, there were really only two other possibilities: either (i) a person other than him, with a freakishly similar opportunity and skill at abducting and killing young women, had kidnapped and murdered Milly; or (ii) Milly had not been abducted by Bellfield at a location just metres from his flat but had chosen to run away from home, and had met her death in an unknown way and at an unknown place not long thereafter.

Given Bellfield’s plea of not guilty and the extreme unlikelihood of the first possibility, the defence had little choice but to pursue the second one.

The cross-examination of the Dowler family

In order to persuade the jury that Milly may have run away, the defence cross-examined members of the Dowler family about highly personal and sensitive material which suggested that, many months before her disappearance, Milly did not enjoy a good relationship with her parents, was unhappy at home and had considered running away. Unsurprisingly, the witnesses found the cross-examination deeply distressing and hurtful – Milly’s mother broke down as she left the witness box and her father was in tears during a good deal of his evidence.

In reality, there was nothing either the prosecution or the court could have done to prevent the cross-examination. First, the prosecution had no choice but to call Milly’s parents and uncle to give evidence; each of them had important evidence of fact to give (although, to their credit, the prosecution spared Milly’s sister that anguish by abandoning her as a live witness and, with the agreement of the defence, reading her statement to the court). Second, none of the material introduced by the defence amounted to evidence of ‘bad character’ (defined as ‘evidence of, or a disposition towards, misconduct’), for which the judge’s leave was required. Third, the cross-examination was relevant to an issue in the case, namely whether Milly had been abducted or had run away. It is right to say that the evidence of Milly having run away was tenuous and weak. But, importantly, it was not so weak as to prohibit it being introduced at all. Its strength or weakness, particularly given the burden and high standard of proof in a criminal trial, was a matter for the jury to determine.

It seems clear that no changes to the trial process should be made to prevent this or any other relevant line of cross-examination. Moreover, whilst every criticism can be made of Bellfield, no criticism can be made of Bellfield’s barrister for having introduced the material. The barrister was right, indeed was obliged, to explore an alternative version of events which was based on his instructions, supported by evidence and relevant to his client’s defence. Some have complained that the cross-examination was overly aggressive but neither the experienced prosecution barrister nor the judge intervened on the basis that the manner of cross-examination was improper. Indeed, in his sentencing remarks, the judge described it as “skilfully and sensitively” done.

Rights of victims and witnesses

It is all too easy to overlook the great strides that have been made in the criminal justice system in protecting the needs and rights of victims of crime and witnesses. A far from comprehensive list of these would include special measures directions, witness anonymity orders, the bad character provisions, reporting restrictions on the identity of victims of sexual offences, young persons and adults in fear or distress, increased powers to admit hearsay evidence, restrictions on cross-examination about a complainant’s sexual behaviour and the use of victim impact statements. The work of the Witness Care Unit and Victim Support has also been invaluable.

Regrettably, the media in the Dowler trial gave a massive amount of publicity to the material introduced by the defence in cross-examination. Doing its best for the family, the prosecution sought a reporting restriction in respect of the more personal aspects of that evidence. This application was, quite properly, refused on the basis there was no legal basis to make the order sought. Of course, the media did not have to report the highly personal material; they could have exercised self-censorship and declined to publish. Ironically, and somewhat hypocritically, the same sections of the media now complain about the defence’s insensitivity to the Dowler family’s distress and loss of reputation.

There is here scope for change: a respectable argument can be made for extending the law, which already permits a court to postpone publication of false and derogatory mitigation, to restrict reporting of evidence in a trial which would have such a deleterious effect on the reputation of a witness that the reporting of it would affect the quality of a witness’s evidence and/or deter witnesses from coming forward in the future. The interests of open justice would militate in favour of the power being exercised sparingly and only in the most exceptional cases, of which the Dowler case might have been one.

The Casey Review

Following the Milly Dowler trial, the Victim’s Commissioner, Louise Casey, issued her Review into the Needs of Families Bereaved by Homicide, in which she made a number of recommendations for bereaved families’ rights in the criminal justice system. These included the early release of a victim’s body for burial, police updates at each stage of an investigation, the right to information from and meetings at key stages with the Crown Prosecution Service, the introduction of a Criminal Procedure Direction about the needs and treatment of bereaved families in court and an integrated package of help and support following the death and beyond any trial. Many of these recommendations are very welcome.

As part of his response to the Casey review, the Director of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer QC, announced that the CPS was enhancing its service to bereaved families by offering face-to-face meetings at a number of additional stages of the criminal process, including following an acquittal and the granting of leave to appeal to the Court of Appeal.

No Radical Changes

There is no question that the distress of and inconvenience to victims and witnesses must, as far as is practicably possible, be alleviated. Ultimately however, there is a limit on the extent to which the trial process or the rules of evidence can be changed to protect victims and witnesses. It is misguided to contend for a criminal justice system that ‘balances’ the rights of the accused against the rights of victims and witnesses. Unlike the accused, a victim or witness does not face the risk of criminal conviction and imprisonment. For this reason, the accused person’s right to a fair trial is paramount and cannot be compromised. And it is therefore possible both to feel profound sympathy for the Dowler family, who in the course of Bellfield’s trial had indignity heaped upon an unimaginable tragedy, and at the same time to believe that no radical changes need to be made to the criminal justice system.

Nine years on from Milly’s disappearance, Levi Bellfield was convicted of her kidnap and murder and sentenced to life imprisonment with a whole life order. The evidence was thoroughly examined, the jury came to a verdict which necessarily rejected the alternative defence version (thereby vindicating the Dowlers) and a richly deserved sentence followed. In the final analysis, however arduous the journey for the family, justice was done.

(This is a slightly edited version of a piece that first appeared in the September 2011 edition of Counsel magazine)