Shock and awe part 6

As you will gather from last week, Mr Lemon found himself about to present a case which had not properly prepared, as an extremely junior barrister facing a junior (Mr Blue) who had about six times as much seniority, and was led by one of the most celebrated criminal QCs in the country (Mr Green QC). Although this was an appeal, it was certainly not an appealing prospect for Mr Lemon.

What happened was this. The Greek appellant was outraged that he had been convicted of something he hadn't done. Now he was a man with a criminal record where he had had none. This to him was a matter of honour. He asked his solicitor who in his opinion was the best criminal QC in the country. The solicitor had replied "Mr Green QC" without for a moment suspecting what was coming next. "Get him to represent me.". The Greek appellant was not interested in being told how expensive this exercise would be. He wanted to be vindicated and so he wanted the best. Thus it was that one of the most junior and inexperienced barristers in the country not only had to face one of the best, but had to face him having failed to take the elementary step of preparing the case. That made the odds considerably worse than those of David facing Goliath. Unsurprisingly on this occasion Goliath won.

One particular difficulty which Mr Lemon had was the fact that all of the Greek persons, both for the prosecution for the defence, had similar sounding names. Careful preparation would have made this relatively easy to deal with. No preparation meant it was a nightmare. It led Mr Lemon into a very basic error. He confused the name of the defendant with the name of a witness when he was adducing evidence in chief from one of the police officers. He could have asked about a previous statement by the defendant because it would have been an admission, but (subject to certain exceptions which are not relevant) he could not ask about a previous statement from a prosecution witness. Nonetheless this was precisely what he asked a police officer to give, Mr Lemon being the only person in the courtroom who thought they were talking about the defendant when everyone else knew they were talking about a prosecution witness. The police officer looked surprised. Since it was so obviously a question which could not be asked, he thought there had been an error. Mr Green QC politely whispered "you can't ask that question". Mr Lemon, convinced that he was talking about the defendant, thought that this was an experienced advocate trying to intimidate him. So he asked the question again. Mr Green QC said in a normal voice this time "you can't ask that question". Mr Lemon was not to be deterred. He asked the question again, at which point Mr Green QC stood up to say that that question could not be asked and an exasperated judge said "of course that question can't be asked". Mr Lemon's attempt to argue about this was not assisted by the fact that he was obviously talking about the wrong person. It does not inspire confidence in your style of prosecution when you apparently do not even know the name of the appellant you are prosecuting.

Needless to say Mr Lemon lost. He would almost certainly have lost anyway prepared or not. However that was not the point. He should have been prepared. It was a lesson he never forgot.