and it was certainly interesting.
I'm not gonna lie, the wigs did make me feel a little bit uncomfortable for a small period of time. Whether it was the authority they held or the blinding urge to throw a pen at them, they certainly had a profound effect on me. I always thought they were the stuff of legend, of times gone by, but no, 50 year old men wear them with honour. The only other place you'd find that is in a pantomime. This would be the perfect time to practise shorthand, but mine is so poor at the moment that it wouldn't be worth it.
Having attended two cases, it's clear which one was the most interesting. Our first case seemed promising; after walking around aimlessly to two empty courtrooms we eventually discovered one with wigged people in, so we decided to enter. The rest of the room was empty, that should have been a hint in itself. 35 minutes passed before the judge entered, NOT wearing a wig. Five minutes after this we found out that the first person being put to trial hadn't turned up. Brilliant. Luckily they breezed straight into the next case and it wasn't long before we learned that it was a personal injury case, not quite what we were looking for but at least we got an opening. The gist? A man was suing his employers because he fell off the back of the lorry whilst working. From the limited notes I managed to get, the defence argued that he should not have been there anyway and it was clearly dangerous. At the mention of the word 'plywood' we called it quits for fear of drowning in boredom.
We left the room and heard, what appeared to be an angry man, say the words "cocaine," "sexual assault," "drugs" and "nipples." Clearly, this was the case for us. The man turned out to be the defendant who was charged with sexual assault. Granted, he was openly admitting that he initially lied to the police to protect his family, but this admittance probably came from the fact he was hoping the jury would be more lenient on him, should he be convicted. The man, a 48 year old with a wife and two kids, stated that he and the accuser had been doing lines of cocaine. This lead to a frisky affair where he described how he sucked her nipples and how she pulled down his trousers to give him oral sex. The barrister questioning him was working his words to his favour, as is usually the case. He asked the defendant if he (as claimed by the accuser) said "I've got a big package," and also, regarding her breasts "can I put my cock between them?" He denied both of these allegations. He felt that a lack of cocaine lead to the allegations and conceded that if he didn't get convicted of sexual assault, he was likely to get convicted for supplying drugs.
That was definitely the most interesting case but we were running out of time and had to leave, or rather, I was. It was nice to get a taste of the court room though, but it definitely demonstrated to me how good my shorthand will have to be to report from one.
Brilliant news that you enjoyed attending court and a great opportunity to practise your short hand.
ReplyDeleteAs court reporting is very strict I would be very careful as to what information you share with the public (i'm sure you'll be learning about court reporting and Libel soon).
Look up: Landlord of Joanna Yeates to sue for libel; it'll give you a good example to use in class and will help your understanding of the dangers of court reporting.
You may want to amend your post, look at other court reports in news papers and see how cautious they are (and don't worry, you only learn from your mistakes :)).