Just over four months later three unelected judges apparently attempted to overturn the democratically expressed will of the British people. I t was back on 23 June 2016 that more than 17.4 million voters expressed their desire to leave the European Union in a referendum referred to by Prime Minister Theresa May in 2019 as “the biggest democratic exercise in our country’s history”. The course was set at the beginning of Johnson’s premiership when he unlawfully prorogued parliament and then sent out pliant ministers to spread misinformation about the judges who had dared point this out, from the business minister Kwasi Kwarteng telling the BBC that “many people … are saying that the judges are biased” to Johnson’s own response when asked about the supreme court decision, chuntering: “ There are a lot of people who want to frustrate Brexit.” Cue the anonymous and self-aggrandising media briefing that the PM’s chief adviser Dominic Cummings “wants to get the judges sorted”. The problem with our justice system, it has been decreed, is the judiciary. 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.However, since entering Downing Street he has found himself moved, both by experience and by the counsel of that ubiquitous Unnamed Downing Street Source, to train his attentions more broadly. 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