Episode Transcript
Better Get A Lawyer, Son’ - Justice Part 1
Child sexual abuse is a crime. What does criminal justice and punishment look like in the legal system? What is it like for survivors - or in this context, “victims” - to pursue criminal justice for the sexual crimes perpetrated against them?
The findings of the Royal Commission’s public hearing into the Criminal Justice System revealed confronting and problematic issues for survivors in accessing justice. Sometimes a personal sense of crime and punishment just doesn’t line up with the complexities, biases and pitfalls of the criminal legal system, leaving both victims and the public with the sickening impression that perpetrators “get away with it”. The necessity for changes to both reporting and prosecution which better serve the victims has now been acknowledged; we’ll hear from survivors and advocates about the way forward, and what needs to change.
Featuring (in order of appearance): Jarad G, Mark C, Craig Hughes-Cashmore (SAMSN MD/CEO), Dr Judy Cashmore, Adam, Professor Patrick O’Leary, Professor Rita Shackel, Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald AM.
Rob Carlton: Welcome to SAMSN’s ‘Stronger’, a podcast series featuring stories of resilience from male survivors of childhood sexual abuse, and their allies. In some parts it is heavy going, so if you're not in the space to listen right now, switch to something lighter. But do come back. We learn a great deal about surviving and growing stronger than your past from survivors.
Felicity Blake: If what you hear stirs up strong feelings, know that you can contact SAMSN at samsn.org.au, or on 1800 472 676, or give Lifeline a call on 13 11 14.
Craig H-C: I'm really passionate - as an advocate - about reform to the legal system.
When I appeared at the Royal Commission, at the public hearing into the criminal justice system, I described it as not adversarial but conspiratorial, because what I know from my own experience, and now from witnessing many other survivors go through the legal system, is that the lawyers, the judge, everyone else (except perhaps the jury, of course), has a copy of a script which takes survivors down a particular path. The system isn't a level playing field, it favors alleged perpetrators. That's without a doubt.
It's impossible for me to imagine what else I might do, to be honest, because this has enabled me to turn a litany of shit experiences into something so valuable and precious to me that I can hardly believe it, that I've had this opportunity to be a part of something so significant.
Felicity Blake: You’re listening to STRONGER, a podcast from SAMSN (Survivors and Mates Support Network). We’re your hosts; I’m Felicity Blake...
Rob Carlton: ...and I’m Rob Carlton. This is episode five: ‘Better Get A Lawyer, Son”, about the real-life experiences of male survivors of child sex abuse pursuing justice through the legal system.
Felicity Blake: Child sexual abuse is when an adult or an older adolescent uses a child for any sexual act, or imposes a sexual threat upon a child. It’s a form of sexual violence, and it is a crime. But this isn’t a “true crime” series, and it’s not about the perpetrators of child sex abuse.
Rob Carlton: STRONGER shares the stories of survivors: the men, abused as young boys, who - with extraordinary courage and strength - are connecting with support, and recovering from their childhood trauma. Not only did they survive; they’ve found ways to thrive.
Felicity Blake: Many survivors who were sexually abused as children didn’t know at the time that what was being done to them was wrong, and in fact a criminal act, until many years later. When they do understand that, some survivors seek recognition for what happened to them as part of a healing journey. This recognition can take the form of: acknowledgement of the abuse, seeking redress for harm caused, or pursuing justice through the legal system. Many take the legal route to try and ensure that similar abuse doesn't happen to other children.
Rob Carlton: In episode 2 of this series, we explored the theme of disclosure, and why it takes over 25 years, on average, for male survivors to tell anybody that they’ve been sexually abused.
When it comes to reporting this crime to the police, well, it can be hard for survivors to come forward, there, too.
Over 80% of victims of sexual assault never report their experiences to the police; it’s actually the most underreported crime against individuals. In this 2-part episode we’ll touch on some of the reasons why, and look at what we - as a community - might be able to do to change that.
Felicity Blake: We’ll start with the story of one family… This is Mark Cashmore.
Mark C: I'm the father of a survivor whose name is Craig. And Craig was born in 1967. And he was adopted at birth.
It was a real shock when Craig was born; I didn't know it was coming. I was totally surprised. I went to a very strict Catholic boarding school. And I felt, of course, appalled by my behavior. Luckily, Craig's mum's parents and my parents realized it wasn't going to work. And so while I was willing to do anything to set it right, we were convinced by our parents that the child should be adopted. And within two weeks, Craig was adopted to a family in Adelaide.
I met Craig when he was 19. And in South Australia, the relevant government authority - Births, Deaths and Marriages, or whatever they call themselves - have a facility whereby if you're a natural parent, and your child is adopted, and you each individually, of course, want to meet the other, then you can write in.
I mean, he was a lovely, lovely person, and my wife and I... we all got along like a house on fire.
Felicity Blake: What Mark and his wife Judy didn’t yet know was that Craig had been sexually abused as a teen by three trusted figures: a family friend and work colleague of his adoptive father, one of his highschool teachers, and an academic.
Decades after reconnecting with Mark and Judy, Craig was able to disclose the abuse that had happened to him.
Mark C: Craig reported the abuse to the police... I think it was in 2008. And he rang my wife and I, and told us what had happened. And we were very surprised, of course. And so that, that is, when we first knew he had been abused.
It came as a surprise and a bit of a shock, obviously. And I did feel a certain degree of guilt, I guess, because of the circumstances of his birth, when I was 19. And obviously, it wasn't planned. And he was adopted out. I felt a bit of guilt, of course, because of the circumstances that I hadn't been there for him over all those years.
But fast forwarding 19 years and meeting him, being in court with him and helping him, and in a sense, expunging the sin of my youth. Maybe I don't want to be too metaphorical. But anyway, no, it was a very marvelous way of closing the loop, closing the circle, making it all worthwhile.
Felicity Blake: This is Craig...
Craig H-C: Ten years or so ago, now, I went to the police and reported my three perpetrators. Two of those ended up in in charges and ultimately, two cases, two trials. And my experience, through that experience of the legal system, was such that I walked away thinking there's a lot of room for improvement, to put it mildly. I felt really battered and bruised through that experience and still do. And it's still hard to talk about it. I have to say it's easier now it's been ten years or so. But certainly, it was incredibly traumatising and it has taken me years to recover from that experience.
As it turned out, my two trials were scheduled a month apart. The first trial was my first time in court, I had no knowledge of the legal system. I was terrified. I felt very alone, very isolated, very exposed, and vulnerable. All of those things mirror the experience and the dynamics of childhood sexual abuse, right? So it was really challenging, and I felt as though I didn't really have any support. I didn't feel like anyone had my back. And when I was in that courtroom, facing a jury of 12, the judge, the court personnel, the lawyers, etc. And in particular, of course, being cross-examined, and being told that I was a liar, being shouted at repeatedly, being denigrated.
My... my whole history, which includes prostitution, and drug addiction, and so on, were brought up. And so I was humiliated. Actually, I felt incredibly... it was the most humiliating experience of my life.
Mark C: They've been at it for a long time, they knew exactly how to exploit the sense of shame and the exhaustion that comes with someone going to a court by that and having to front up and having the courage to do that. And to expose themselves. Craig knew that I knew what he was going through, and that I felt he was extremely strong. In fact, I think I called him a warrior.
Craig H-C: And, and not surprisingly, I didn't... that guy was found not guilty by the jury, who I never blamed because they didn't hear my story, they didn't get the context around the story, because really, I fell victim to the tactics and strategies that defense lawyers use in cases like these every day. I didn't know what to expect, I didn't really know what my rights were. My lawyer didn't interject. It was a terrible experience.
Mark C: The first one, the person was acquitted by a jury. That came as a hell of a surprise to Craig, and a shock to me. And that made him very angry, I think.
Craig H-C: But what I learned in between those two trials was that I actually had to virtually defend myself. I had to represent myself and I had to go to battle. And I got my hands on a book called 'Surviving the Legal System', which has been written by an amazing woman, Caroline Taylor. And in it she described those tactics and strategies that defense lawyers use. And I recognized instantly that that's what I had been through. And I was now a survivor of the legal system.
Felicity Blake: Mark flew to Adelaide to support Craig as he went through the court process.
Mark C: Yes, I guess, the main thing, I think, that Craig required was me to be there for him, and to believe in him. And to keep reminding him that it wasn't his fault. That he had to realize he was loved by many people.
The first case was a travesty. I mean, it was a poorly handled case by the prosecution. So I was able to talk to Craig about all that, and I guess, make it easier to handle the fact that that first case went the wrong way.
Then there was a second case, followed on that, which was a very public case, there were television cameras outside the court, headline news in the local paper. And this was the judge only. And, Craig, I think, had learned a lot from the first case. I did too. I think, as a result of his first case, or what have you, he had felt a great sense of betrayal.
Craig H-C: So when I went into my second trial, I was... I not only had the firsthand experience, but I had the knowledge that I could represent myself. I could ask the judge for a break, I could turn to the judge, when the defense lawyer cut me off, and ask that I be allowed to finish answering the question. Things like that.
Felicity Blake: In addition to Mark, Craig's adoptive mother and his Aunt and Uncle also attended to provide support.
Craig H-C: A big one was having people in court to support me during my second trial. My first trial, I really didn't want anyone in court, I just felt too embarrassed. And I didn't want anyone to hear the details of the abuse.
On my second trial, I thought, yeah. You know, I'd come to understand that it would be important for me to have people in there, not just personally, but also to show the court that there were people that loved and supported me and believed me. And so they were there. And that made a huge difference. And little things like just having my iPod with a playlist of music. That kind of would help ground me during that whole process.
So the result, personally, was incredibly different, but the outcome was different. And ironically, my second perpetrator was found guilty.
Mark C: I've been encouraging as I can be, of course, but one doesn't know how effective that is. That I can stand back and look at the relationship between Judy and Craig and see that relationship, developing and manifestly changing Craig and giving him more confidence.
We're the best of mates, I think. And it's serendipitous that she and Craig, number one, get along so well. And number two, she happens to be an expert in this very field!
Judy C: I'm Judy Cashmore. I'm a developmental psychologist working at the law school at Sydney University since 2004, doing research. But I've done research for a long time, actually since 1985, on child witnesses, and did the evaluation of the use of closed circuit TV for child witnesses in the ACT, the first time it was used in Australia. And coincidentally, I'm also Craig's stepmother, and have known him since about the same time, he was 19 when he came into our lives, and met him when our daughter, just at the time our daughter was born. I've known him since 1986. And it's been wonderful to have him in our lives and as a son that I didn't know beforehand, although, of course, I knew of his existence. He was adopted earlier in life.
I remember clearly the day that I spoke with Craig, after he had come out of Goulburn police station, I was really concerned about why that was and what was happening. And his comment was, “I have decided to take control of my life”. And that was the beginning of a really long process and a very difficult one.
A number of the problems with the criminal justice system were really evident in the way in which his trials were conducted. But it was typical of some of the issues that the victim often goes into it feeling very unprepared, that it's not an equal playing field. That the questions are asked in courts and so on, in a very intimidating style, not so much with child witnesses now, because we've got a lot more special measures in place. And also, I think defense lawyers and judicial officers now take a very different view of challenging, accusatory type questioning of children, because that doesn't go down well with the jury. But it doesn't play out quite the same way with adult survivors, when they go, go to court. But at the same time, it can trigger the same sorts of feelings that they had when they were children, so that they can almost revert to their feelings of what it was like to be a child at that age. And when we haven't done very well, yet as a, in terms of the criminal justice system, in really understanding and taking account of that, because a number of these special measures are not available to adult sexual assault survivors, and I mean, those who were sexually assaulted as children, and also those who were sexually assaulted as adults. That it's still a very formal and intimidatory court environment, the only people who really feel comfortable in courts, I think, are judicial offices and lawyers: it's their space. It's their language. And the attacks on credibility and reliability can be very hard for a witness to deal with. Those, no, it can't have happened that way. Or why didn't you tell anyone? You didn't tell anyone for such a long time, that means it can't have really happened. Why didn't you tell? All of those sorts of issues. Are you only telling now because you want to get some victim compensation money out of it, which is a really, you know, troubling way for it to be placed, because the sort of things that the challenges that somebody comes forward to report this have to deal with a no way compensated by what might be some compensation money, and it's not not enough to compensate for all that they have to deal with. And then there are the rules of evidence that, you know, are very difficult for lay people to understand.
I think there... the trial, or the book that Caroline Taylor produced, ‘Surviving the Legal System’, I know it was really helpful for Craig, because it spoke directly to the type of experience he had in the first trial. And I can talk to him on an academic basis and what I know from the research, it doesn't go to the actual experience of being there. And that's really a very personal one. And the way in which Craig dealt with it in the second trial was so different than in the first. He was much happier to have somebody in the courtroom to have Mark in, his father, in the courtroom with him at that stage. And he also was much more aware of how he could take control of the situation. And instead of being told, “Just a yes or no answer, that's all you're being asked to give”, or being cut off by the defence when he hadn't finished what he wanted to say... He was able to turn to the judge, or address the judge and say, “I haven't finished what I wanted to say”, and be able to finish his question. So he took control of some of the questioning. That sort of issue and that sort of control was really crucial. And it also made a difference to the outcome, and how he felt about it afterwards. Because the outcome of the first trial, which was a really poor experience, an appalling experience, in many ways, and it didn't bring credit on the particular prosecution, or the Crown Prosecutor in that case, I think, is a lesson for what we need to do in terms of making some differences.
Craig H-C: We really owe it to the survivors who choose to do that to improve the system, because I don't think it's okay to put people through a system that we know is going to be harrowing and traumatic when it doesn't necessarily need to be. That, to me just seems incredibly dishonest and unfair. And I don't think, you know, most survivors, like me have no understanding what it's really going to look like, what it's really going to be like. And we need to make that clear so that people make informed decisions about whether that's something they want to subject themselves to, because they don't have to. And they shouldn't feel obligated to do that. It's not survivors’ responsibility to report offenders and get these bastards off the street. And certainly, putting them through a system that routinely retraumatizes and actually adds to people's trauma is just plain unjust, and negligent, I would suggest.
Rob Carlton: With her research partner, Professor Rita Shackel, Judy Cashmore has conducted research about the prosecution of child sexual abuse, and co-authored an important Australian research paper about the long-term effects of child sexual abuse.
Rita Shackel: My name is Rita Shackel, and I'm currently a professor of law and ethics at the University of Sydney Law School. I have just finished a term as a co-director of the Sydney Institute of Criminology, as well. My substantive area of research is sexual violence. And for over 20 years now, I have been working in this field with a particular focus on child sexual abuse and sexual violence, both contemporary and historical. And my work has extended to international spaces, as well as nationally.
So I think in an Australian context, we're at, we're still, although these conversations have been going on for quite some time, we're still at the outset of those conversations, I think we need to have more of those conversations.
The difficulty that we have with our criminal justice system, is that it is fundamentally adversarial and accusatorial in character, and that is always going to structurally place limits on the way these cases can be dealt with. We can do a lot of things to improve the way the criminal justice system responds. But ultimately, some of those core structural principles that underlie the system have to be addressed as well. And so I think that's why it is useful to think about other paradigms that might ultimately be more sensitive, more responsive, and offer victims and survivors the justice that they actually are looking for. And importantly, provide victims and survivors, a voice, a genuine voice. I'm not so sure that even if we change the criminal justice system that we can provide victims with with a voice in the way that victims and survivors are wanting to have their voice, simply because that's not what the criminal justice system has been set up to do. Sadly, and unfortunately.
There's been a lot of discussion, particularly recently, on this very point and whether we're expending a lot of energy trying to fix a system that is not just broken, which which it clearly is, but inherently will fail, because of the way that it is structured, and because of some of the structural deficits of the system that do not allow the system to be sufficiently agile, and sensitive to the needs of victims and survivors. So there has, for example, been some discussion about, and in other jurisdictions moves, towards a different paradigm of delivering justice, which is more about restoration, rather than the type of justice that is currently able to be served through the criminal justice system.
Rob Carlton: Professor Patrick O’Leary is Co-Lead of the Disrupting Violence Research Beacon and Director of the Violence Research and Prevention Program at Griffith University. He's a social worker by profession, and has has focussed on gender-based violence and male survivors of child sexual abuse. His work has influenced international domestic violence and child protection policy and practice. He’s also been Chair of SAMSN's Clinical Advisory Committee since 2014.
Patrick O'Leary: I think we need to understand the history of why child sexual abuse has been minimized by the legal system, and some of the fundamental structures and institutions in society. I'm going to give one example: we ran a comparison of how the church responded to other complaints about priests or other ways that priests would be dealt with if they were deemed to have engaged in misconduct.
And so, first of all, we noted that, you know, lots of priests had numerous complaints against them from children directly, children's families, about sexual assault, and those priests were never taken to the police, often they were moved on, in many cases sent on a retreat of reflection and counseling. Sometimes overseas, sometimes almost seen as a reward, almost in the terms of the special time they were given. Comparatively, at the same time, we looked at, you know, at the know, the priests to undertake the vow of celibacy. And we compared some of the way the church responded when priests were found to breach their vows of celibacy in relation to a consensual adult sexual relationship with another woman or another man or another woman, and predominantly more often a woman, which is really interesting, I find. In those cases, whilst that was clear, you know, it's clearly not, you know, it's it's a, it was defined where there was a consensual relationship. So we're not talking about assault here. Those priests were asked to leave the priesthood. They were punished, they lost their rights, and were shamed and really suffered. At the same time, this is the same period, priests who were offending against children, criminal offences, and let's not shy away from that, were sent away, sent for further development. So I think in that legal system, we've got that history of some of the fundamental institutions in our society, not seeing crimes, sexual crimes against children, as significantly serious, as significantly concerning. And I think we still are impacted by that.
That's only one example I gave there. I think Catholic church there are many others in the legal system, where cases were dismissed. On the basis of it being a misunderstanding by the legal system, the police system. The legal system up until the 1980s. Many police forces, in Tasmania is one example, when a child sexual assault was reported, and people had a diagram of what to, to show the body, it was only ever represented as a female body. So essentially the law and police investigation by only having that sort as an assault that was against females against women. And that was very much enshrined in the idea, which is a sort of that patriarchal idea of women as property. So women were, sexual assaults against women originally, were largely geared in criminal law, because women were viewed as men's property. And I think that some of those residues of that legal system still embark on us now and and in terms of why the legal system is inadequate to deal with sexual offenses against children.
This system is an old system that was influenced by faith institutions, male dominated institutions that positioned the truth telling, as not the position of the survivor, but the position of the law to decide what's right and wrong.
But I think that it's really important when we talk about why the legal system's inadequate, is these things have continued to influence how we view the legitimacy of a complaint.
I think the other position that we have is we saw in some very high profile cases, that it was up to the prosecution to prove the plausibility that this could have occurred. Yet, we put little onus on the perpetrator's plausibility of proving that it didn't occur, and the plausibility of how they could have got away with it. It's a huge power imbalance there. I remember one survivor recently telling me you know, like, if you're, if you're running in the marathon, to try and get a trial, it's like having a handicap of five or 10 K's, you've got five or 10 K's to catch up before you can even be on an equal footing.
Felicity Blake: Commissioner Robert Fitzgerald personally listened to the stories of more than 1,400 survivors who came forward to the Royal Commission for Institutional Responses to Child Sex Abuse. Some were disclosing their abuse for the first time, so many years later. Others had already sought justice through the legal system.
Robert Fitzgerald: So the criminal justice system has been adversarial, in its nature, a contest between the crown and the alleged perpetrator. But it's also been a system that I think has been adversarial to victims and survivors.
There is no question for decades upon decades, that our law enforcement system, and particularly our judicial system acted against the interests of victims and survivors, men and women, and sexual abuse and sexual abuse within institutions. We've now only started to see real change in relation to that area. In a very common level, we're starting to see a huge number of investigations being undertaken by the police that would not have otherwise taken place. We're seeing that in relation to older perpetrators and historic crimes that would have otherwise gone, just left unattended. We are seeing changes in the laws around the sorts of evidence that can be adduced into some courts, we are starting to see public prosecutors change the way in which witnesses are actually interviewed by not only police, but also by prosecutors as part of the crimes, the actual case itself. And we are starting to see a better educated judiciary.
The difficulty is however, the criminal justice process is brutal. It is a brutal process the way it is played out. And as a consequence of that, there's no doubt at all that, firstly, there is a sort of retraumatization that takes place with victims that come forward and are prepared to in fact be witnesses in these cases. The second thing is the chances of a conviction are no better than they were ten years ago. So there are more charges being laid, more matters are going to court. But the conviction rate for a contested case, that is where the person doesn't plead guilty, has not changed. And so you go through all of the pain and suffering associated with the rigors of a contested adversarial or criminal justice system, but without any greater prospect that there'll be a conviction. And that's why we need to be so praising and so supportive of the men and women that are doing it. Because the road is terrible. It is really difficult.
Now, it is better than it was and it is improving in every aspect. But let's be very clear that the criminal justice system as practiced in Australia, is brutal for victims and survivors. And I can't say that that has substantially changed. Well, I can say it is improving. And certainly there is a greater prospect of your matter being investigated, charged, and ending up in court, not necessarily convicted.
Craig H-C: And it's, it's not trauma-informed. It's actually trauma-inducing. And I think it's, at a basic level incredibly unfair. And what I struggle with, even today, as an advocate, is that, you know, the frustration that we need to do so much more to improve this system, because we so often congratulate survivors who go to the police and then go to court. And we call them brave and courageous. But actually, those two words I never really related to, because I just felt terrified by the whole thing and intimidated.
Mark C: Craig was able to take his efforts away from the negativity and frustration, and perhaps the shame and all the things that come with being a survivor, and especially if it's not all done and dusted, and step into Survivors and Mates Support Network.
I think all credit to him, because my god, you know, that's an extraordinary thing that he did. He put his own money in, he set it up with a couple of other fellows who aren't there now. And the raison d'etre was to look after other survivors - other male survivors. And so that clearly took up his mind space, but enabled him to detach himself from the legacy of what had happened prior.
Craig H-C: SAMSN came out of a conversation that I had the first time I met my co-founder, Shane. We had been introduced by a mutual friend who was supporting both of us through the criminal justice system, or I should say, the legal system. And Shane and I met and we're very, very different people, but there was a connection. And even though we didn't really talk much about what had happened to us, we connected and I think just knowing that he was a survivor gave me a level of comfort that I had never really felt before. And so there was a kind of knowingness, and we were talking about the lack of support for male survivors in New South Wales and thought it was terrible that in 2010, there was nothing. And so SAMSN came out of a conversation that ended with "Someone should really do something". We decided to do something.
Rob Carlton: Craig and Shane formed a peer-support group of guys with experience of childhood sexual abuse. At first, they met at Craig’s house, and then at a local community hall.
Craig H-C: And it felt really good to spend time with other guys and start talking about some of the issues that we faced and all sorts of things to do with recovery and healing. And then we got in contact with a psychologist who had been running support groups, and we started raising money and to pay the facilitators to run these groups. And we ran our first eight-week group at the end of 2011. And it really grew from there very quickly.
Rob Carlton: SAMSN registered as a charity in 2012 and now assists hundreds of men and their supporters each year by providing a range of free services.
Mark C: The question of resilience is, is an extraordinary thing, I have to say, because he has come through his challenge in life, with flying colours, and I think it's almost extraordinary that he's done that.
He's never been backward about transparently discussing where he's come from. And I think that's one of his strengths. And it's one of the strengths of SAMSN, because it's being led by somebody who's been there, done it, survived, and has the empathy and confidence to turn all that into something extraordinary positive. And I think that knowledge for him is what's motivating him and keeping him going.
And when people hear him talk, and he talks very well, about his experiences in public, I think you can't help but be amazed and highly impressed by what this bloke has done.
Craig H-C: In conjunction with the Sydney Law School and the Institute of Criminology, SAMSN hosted a roundtable to look at the criminal justice system. We did it almost two years to the day since the Royal Commission's final report into the criminal justice system was published. And we brought together about 30 people, for a half day workshop, really to look at where things were at.
And my take is that by joining together with those people - survivors working with professionals - we can bring about change. And so there was a very rich conversation around all that. It was a very practical exercise. There were some great ideas, survivors' voices were heard, we had about eight survivors in the room, who had been through the legal system. And their experience was incredibly valuable, and really value-added to that whole conversation. So it was kind of an audit, if you like, of where we were. But also, we saw some accountability. I think through that process... was to say that look, we're here, we want to help. We understand it's difficult. But it can't all happen behind closed doors, and it can't happen without the support and input and lived expertise from survivors.
Staff at the DPP - well, the various DPPs around the country who are working in this space - are doing really tough work. That's the solicitors and the witness assistants, support people, the lawyers, crown prosecutors and so on... it's really tough work. They don't always get it right. I would like to think that in most cases, they do. But for me, there can't be any room for inconsistency here. So I think we need to look at their processes, to see how we can ensure that survivors aren't dependent on who they get as their solicitor or their prosecutor, that there is a level of consistency. That's what I found through my trials, one was really well handled, and the other was mishandled. And the results spoke for themselves.
And I think, with the criminal justice system roundtable that we held, it was really about creating a space where all the main players in that system, the police, the DPP, the solicitors, the witness assistants, people... researchers and academics, etc, could get together and, and almost in a way, do a bit of an audit and do some thinking around the pain points. What has been achieved, but also what hasn't, and where we go next.
Felicity Blake: That’s it for part 1 of “Better Get a Lawyer, Son”. In part 2, we’ll hear two very different stories from Adam and Jarad about their experiences with the legal system.
