On Saturday 12 November, a team of 14 A level law students participated in the Regional round of the National Bar Mock Trial competition held at Guildford Crown Court.

The event, organised by the Citizenship Foundation, is very prestigious and provides an excellent opportunity for students to observe first-hand how the legal system works.  The students had been given two criminal cases to prepare in advance, and on the day played the roles of barristers, witnesses, other court staff and jurors presenting each case in front of a real robed judge.

Students have spent the past few weeks preparing, regularly staying behind after College to practise their examinations-in-chief and cross examinations, write speeches and perfect their legal arguments.

The competition itself involved three rounds where teams from eight schools across the home counties battled it out against each other.  Our team was divided into two sub teams, each taking on the preparation and delivery of one case. 

One half of the team was given a challenging witness intimidation case to prepare.  Testing questions and persuasive advocacy alongside measured delivery and an ability to think quickly on their feet were demonstrated by our barristers, Aidan King and Amy Bryant.  Our witnesses were played by Katie Howarth and Calvin Winstanley who provided thoroughly believable evidence and gave compelling performances from the witness stand.  Jemma Pike helped to run proceedings smoothly in court by swearing in the jury and reading uncontested statements of witnesses.  As court usher, Amy Thomas looked after the judge and witnesses, ensuring that the judge was collected from chambers and the witnesses were escorted to the witness box and suitably sworn in.  

The other half of the team were given the task of preparing the Defence case for a defendant arguing self defence to an accusation of a serious assault.  Charlie Timms and Nic Hucker acted as Defence Counsel whilst Caitlin Thomson and Jess Muller both acted as defence witnesses.  Both barristers gave assured and commanding performances posing incisive questions when cross-examining Prosecution witnesses and exuding a calmness when delivering their speeches to the jury.  Our witnesses, Caitlin, who played the defendant and Jess were both very convincing and stuck to their stories in the face of rigorous cross-examination from the Prosecution.

Chikondi Banda, Jess Stevens, Lucy Boswell and Georgia Heggie acted as our jurors; they all played a key role in deciding the guilt or innocence of the accused in each case.

Each member of the team produced superb performances in their respective roles.  Charlie Timms dubbed the whole experience, “exciting and rewarding” whilst Aidan King commented on how both the preparation in advance and delivery on the day was, “enjoyable and gave a real impression of how the criminal justice system works.” These sentiments were echoed by Caitlin Thomson who said, “it was a great experience to see a court in action.”

Judge Jeremy Carter-Manning QC congratulated the students on their impressive performance and Barrister Mentor, Samantha Wright praised the standard of the students’ work saying that they performed better than some of her colleagues do!

The law department remarked, “Our students did both themselves and the College proud.  This has been such a valuable experience for them and they have shown real dedication investing time and hard work in to the competition, especially in what is a very busy and demanding term.”