11-year-old puts junior barristers’ child-questioning skills to the test

Junior tenants Lidia Iancu, Ross Ludlow, Alex Shanks, Sophie Clifford and pupils Adam Furze and Eliza Harris take part in Drystone Chambers ‘A Practical Introduction to Cross-Examining Children’ provided by Allison Summers KC, Karen Walton and Jon Green and involving 11-year-old Emile Villeger, a pupil from ArtsEd Performing Arts School in London, as the child witness.

‘Advocates must adapt to the witness, not the other way round.’

(Lady Justice Hallett in R v Lubemba; R v JP [2014] EWCA Crim 2064, para 45)

As the Advocate’s Gateway makes clear, the questioning of vulnerable witnesses and defendants is a specialist skill. Like all skills they have to be learnt and developed. There can be a tendency by junior barristers to shy away from taking cases involving child witnesses, so the purpose of this training session was to give our most junior tenants and pupils some practical experience. We created a specially adapted case and decided to use 11-year-old Emile Villeger, a pupil from ArtsEd Performing Arts School in London, to add authenticity.

Many of our members undertake cases involving the cross-examination of children and other vulnerable witnesses. Karen Walton who oversaw the training has extensive experience of calling and questioning young defendants and complainants.

As the criminal courts continue to be saddled with backlogs, the pressures on advocates have never been more burdensome or the scrutiny of their worth greater. Our internal training is designed to give our junior members the confidence and the skills on which to build their careers.