his jealousy, a pre-existing
character flaw, that drove
him to slip a knife into his
wife’s throat as she lay
peacefully sleeping.
We follow the points back
and forth like spectators at
Wimbledon, marvelling at the
fleetness of the barristers who
can turn on a sixpence, and
secretly pleased when a
professional expert witness,
a too-slick psychiatrist, gets
momentarily thrown. Yet,
as so often happens in the
law, there is no climax, no
moment of catharsis as the
credits roll. Instead the case
splutters out miserably before
the verdict can be returned.
Then there is Ruth, a
middle-class teenager charged
with the attempted murder
of her baby daughter. In the
course of the case it becomes
clear that Ruth is not suffering
from post-natal depression,
as everyone had assumed.
What has made her mad —
perhaps literally — is the
fact that the father of her
baby is her married music
teacher, a much older man
who assiduously groomed
her before vanishing when
her pregnancy threatened to
blow his cover.At this point Joseph
needs to think quickly and
strategically. Would it be
possible to change the
charge against Ruth to the
very rare “attempted
infanticide”? Or what about
“child cruelty”? It sounds
like semantics, but if it
opens the way for the girl
to stay at home and do
community service rather
than returning to prison to
ruin her life and her baby’s,
then it is worth a try. As for
the music master, he can
expect a visit from the
police soon.
Time and again we sit
beside My Lady as she tots
up the mitigating and
aggravating circumstances
of a particular offence. Whatmakes the stakes so high is
that in the weeks to come her
words will be pored over by
the barristers looking for any
tiny slip or stumble that could
form grounds for an appeal.
In the hands of a less-
skilled writer, all this
job-speak might start to drag,
like the sound of a dentist
droning on about root canals.
Yet Joseph is such a deft
deployer of suspense and
nuance that she turns even
the Sentencing Act 2020
schedule 21 into a cliffhanger.
She is funny too, with a
keen eye for the absurdities of
the human condition whether
it appears before her in a
cheap suit and prison sweats
or a silk gown and horsehair
wig. There is, for instance,
Gloria Vaughan, the barrister
who has cornered the market
in what are still called
“battered women” cases.
Vaughan insists on her clients
wearing pastel jumpers and
Peter Pan collars to court
and likes “to hug them
wherever possible, and
especially if it can be done
in sight of the jury”.
This makes Joseph sound
cynical or glib, but she is
neither. Her criticism of
Vaughan’s carryings-on arises
from her conviction that
“many of these women have
perfectly good defences
that don’t need hugs and
pink sweaters”.
Likewise, when she
deadpans that she and
her fellow judges “all like a
shooting. Bullets and angles
and maybe a little gunshot
residue make such a change
from stabbing,” she is
drawing our attention to the
shameful fact that, from
where she sits, knife crime
has become routine.
What is the solution?
Joseph is too subtle and
astute to suggest that she
has an easy fix. Yet in her
forthright final chapter she
argues that the cases she has
laid before us represent a kind
of collective failure. Better
mental health provision,
robust safeguarding and
an education system that
engages fully with young
people’s needs might not have
stopped Meshach, Joshua and
Ruth doing what they did.
There is, after all, always the
matter of personal choice.
“But if we think that is the
end of the matter,” Joseph
says, “we are not just foolish,
we are wickedly so.” cto her one time too many.
None of these cases is
simple and all have hinterlands
of unfathomable sadness. Still,
Judge Wendy is not here to
wring her hands. Rather, she
wants to walk us through the
arcane legal framework within
which she must try these very
different defendants, pointing
out the places where the law is
a “dull-edged tool designed for
nothing but the careful
application of itself ” as well as
those other, better moments
where it tries to protect the
innocent and pursue the guilty.
It is these latter places, where
the world is briefly set right,
that make you want to cheer.
Take the case of Joshua,
a former soldier who killed
his wife in a fit of jealous
rage when he discovered
that she was about to leave.
Both the prosecution and
defence teams agree that
Joshua’s service in
Afghanistan and Syria has
left him with post-traumatic
stress disorder. However, the
Crown claims that the PTSD
did not cause Joshua to lose
his temper; after all, he had
been struggling with its
symptoms for years without
resorting to murder. It was
CHILDREN’S
BOOK OF THE WEEK
NICOLETTE JONES
Clarice Bean: Scram!
by Lauren Child
HarperCollins £12.99,
age 7-9Clarice Bean’s is one of the
most distinctive comic
voices of children’s
literature: “Nothing ever
happens, except for
sometimes. And only on
rare-ish occasions, which is
hardly ever.” This latest
narrative about her family is
an account of a day that
starts as a nothing day, but
involves getting on the
wrong side of her grumpy
elder sister, Marcie, before
a stray dog causes more
trouble, then redeems
everything. Everyone in
it is deftly characterised:
the kind grandfather, the
complaining neighbour,
her fearful younger brother
and the annoying boy
next door. The varied,
dancing text and Child’s
elegant, light-hearted
illustrations make every
page appealing, and it’s
funny. As Clarice Bean
would say: “It’s fascinating
and also very interesting.”WATCH OUT FOR
The Baker by the Sea
by Paula White
Templar £6.99, age 3-6Set in a Suffolk fishing
village, this picture book is
a historical record, the story
of a baker’s son, and a
lesson in the contribution
made by every individual
in a small community. It
is beautifully drawn and
evokes the time and place
exquisitely, mostly in
monochrome. A delight.Legal eagle Wendy Joseph’s
book is a real eye-openerWas it PTSD,
or his temper
that made him
a murderer?
29 May 2022 31