Conference With Counsel

I received a telephone call yesterday lunchtime from a barrister who is dealing with a trial that is currently being heard in the Crown Court. He phoned me and said, "What are you doing later? I think we need to meet to discuss the case and view the CCTV as a witness has just dropped us in it".

The CCTV that the barrister is referring to is held by me and is subject to an undertaking that I keep it under lock and key. My barrister is not allowed to have a copy of the CCTV despite several applications being made to the Court and pleas made to the CPS. There is a total of 3,500 hours worth of CCTV.

I told Counsel that I was in Court that afternoon so would have to speak to him later. Things went 'belly up' at Court so I finished far later than planned. Eventually I had set up the CCTV and it was agreed that I would watch the CCTV and relay what I was seeing over the phone to Counsel.

After spending some considerable time speaking to Counsel about what he was hoping to achieve by looking at the CCTV I trawled through the mass of material. At 10pm I started a telephone conference with Counsel and by 11.30pm we had finished! During the one and a half hours conference Counsel told me that he was happy with the evidence and that the conference was useful. The CCTV seemed to partly vindicate the Client and gave Counsel some ammunition to fire at the witness for today.

My wife did not sound impressed at 10pm when I said I would only be 10 minutes on the phone. She asked why I could not have dealt with this issue in office hours. By the time I had finished at 11.30pm the wife was asleep in bed. Looks like I will be in the dog house tonight.