As a fan of defence barrister Joanna Hardy-Susskind’s pithy social media commentary on the justice system, Obiter was excited to learn that Hardy-Susskind is presenting a 10-part BBC Radio 4 series, You Do Not Have To Say Anything. This, we’re told, ‘lifts the curtain on the real criminal justice system and the real people working within it.
‘From our sofas in Britain, we lap up docuseries and podcasts scrutinising America’s “broken” justice system, but the inner workings of our own remain mysterious: a place where wig-wearing barristers pace dusty corridors and speak archaic language to purple-robed judges. It is time to peel back the curtain,’ the BBC said ahead of the first episode, which airs on Monday. [Editor’s note: don’t you pull a curtain, rather than peel it? And lift a lid, while we’re about it?]
‘Do barristers wash their wigs? What do officers and suspects chat about in the back of police cars? How do people try to get out of jury service? What goes on in a barristers’ robing room? And how do you tell someone that they are going to prison?’
Obiter will definitely be tuning in, if only to find out the answer to the first question (we assume the answer isn’t ‘washing machine, delicates setting’).
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