Court walkouts over legal aid entered a third week as criminal barristers used the media’s spotlight to highlight the impact that insufficient funding will have on racial diversity.
Dozens of wigged and robed barristers gathered in the sweltering heat outside the Supreme Court this morning, including Dr Shaun Wallace (pictured above, far right) a barrister of 38 years but widely known for being one of the ‘Chasers’ on ITV quiz show The Chase.
After seeing people of colour ‘few and far between’ throughout his career, Wallace said there was a ‘tremendous paradigm shift’. ‘But at the same time, what we have seen in the last [few] decades is chronic underfunding by this and successive governments before them. I have seen colleagues doing their all, totally demoralised.’
Without the ability to attract diverse talent, ‘the bar will wither on the vine and die’, Wallace said.
Once again, the crowd heard from several members of the junior bar. A black junior barrister recalled meeting a client in court who was shocked to see someone who looked like him.
The barrister told the crowd he fears the UK has become complacent over its reputation as having the best criminal justice system in the world. With courts crumbling, trials collapsing and barristers quitting, he said he was concerned ‘we will not be able to walk into court and sit down and represent people who look like me’, people who are ‘traditionally from an over-policed community’.
He added: ‘The face of the criminal bar has changed for the better. I urge you to keep that face, so when young people walk into a cell and see their barrister, there is a level of empathy they can have, because they know people from different communities stand together and represent what I’m proud to call the criminal bar.’
