Criminal legal aid barristers have spent the best part of 2022 persuading the government, as well as the public, that the work they do is vital.

In her latest Monday message, Criminal Bar Association chair Kirsty Brimelow KC thanked members for working to maintain and preserve their profession on top of the day job.

But ‘having heard my voice for so many months’, Brimelow figured members might like to hear from Dame Bobbie Cheema-Grubb (pictured above), who finishes her term as presiding judge of the South Eastern Circuit on 31 December.

Describing 2022 as a ‘bruising year’, Cheema-Grubb said the criminal bar had pulled together in exceptional ways. When she enters court, she sees the same ‘daring, fearlessness and allegiance to justice as I did when I started in practice more than 30 years ago’.

Though this must have been a first: ‘In one of my jury trials a defence silk demonstrated that barristers still have the power to stun the entire court into silence, in a dramatic gesture during her speech she flung open her gown to reveal a t-shirt bearing the legend “Hear no shit, Speak no shit, Take no shit.” Encrochat had come home. At the case dinner (a complete joy), I was delighted to be provided with my very own copy (as was my clerk.) Long live the criminal bar. Long live its sense of humour, esprit de corps, and devotion to be the best, and make friends afterwards whether you win or lose.'

Cheema-Grubb concluded her message with sage advice: ‘Don’t neglect meeting together in chambers or in the Inns. Do always hold the door open for the next one in. Continue to slip into court to watch all the cases before the one you are in and make friends with the ushers and clerks, they will do you favours and remember you, if you only let them.

‘And when you are trudging home to open the next digital case remember to switch the computer and your smart phone completely off sometimes. Especially when Christmas bells are ringing, and the only cancellations are of the railway type.’

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