Hello and welcome again to Free Your Mind, Let's Talk About It with LKJ. Today's guest is a highly intelligent, wonderful profile, intellectual gentleman, and also I must say, for our viewers who I know, uh, Rhys personally, um, likes to think he can move like a Jagger on the dance floors, etc. As he freeze his mind and his legs when he's doing that, because he does have a very hard, demanding, and mentally, um, absorbing of his own mind, um, in his workload as a criminal barrister. So we're going to use this show and we're going to ask Ross to open up and free his mind and allow us as a views to come in and understand understand, does mental health play a part in criminality? What is the trigger that can set somebody off? You know, his, his work and his own life experiences, and to perhaps leave us with, you know, more insight into when we read the reports in the media when somebody has been convicted of drink driving, or somebody has, um, caused death by dangerous driving, for instance, and many more things, because Rhys does specialize in this subject, um, as a criminal barrister. But obviously over his career, it's done in other fields of criminality, as well as working for a bank where he controlled a debt book for over 450 £50 million in excess of, which also opened up to, um, understand the fraud and other, um, areas of law that he has, um, been party to and, um, represented people in the Crown Court. So on that note, hello Rhys, I hope you're not dancing and you're ready to talk. No dancing, ready to go. You're right. So, Rhys, can you, um, start us on this wonderful journey, um, of expressing and freeing your own mind as a life as a criminal barrister? And so, first of all, thank you very much for having me on, LKJ. Um, I first wanted to be a barrister when I was quite young, and people always ask me now why. Unfortunately, I genuinely can't remember. I think it came down probably to watching repeated episodes of The Bill, but not quite wanting to be a police officer. I went to university at Warwick, studied law with finance, and then upon graduating started the course to become a barrister before going to work for a year at the Royal Bank of Scotland dealing with corporate debt, as you've already said. And then I started pupillage, which is the equivalent of a training contract, to Bedford Row in 2016. And I've been there for the last 5 and a half, 6 years. And during that time, as you say, dealt with a variety of different offences. And, and that's typically as you would in any other career. You start off dealing with relatively straightforward matters, and as time goes on, you start to deal with the more serious things like murder, serious fraud, armed robbery. And that's effectively the journey you go on, not only in the start of your career but also as you progress beyond the junior end and become more senior. But one thing that remains a constant, if you like, is the trigger for how people find themselves in a position whereby they need your help and need your representation. And in many ways, that trigger is somewhat dependent on who they are and the offense that they found themselves to be charged with having allegedly unless of course they accept it, committed and found themselves before the court. Because that can be anything, as you say, from a drink driving to a serious fraud to a murder. But, but there always tends to be a mental trigger, because in order to be guilty of an offense, the prosecution not only have to prove that you committed an act, but also that you had the requisite intention when you committed that act. You intended either deliberately or recklessly, that something would happen as a result of your actions. Yes, completely. And that is something that there's a lot of pressure put upon both sides, I think, when we look at law and criminal law, and very different to contract law or civil law. And a lot of people find themselves being in a civil case that where the Crown Prosecution Service will not proceed because they have to have a certain percentage to know that they're going to bring this to court and get a result. Um, and being with that, you know, the police officer, etc., that's doing the charge has to go about his duties, enable to find the right evidence, evidence not to be, um, what would you say regarding the evidence? Not tampered with, isn't it? And it's correct. When the police investigate an offence, they have to pursue all reasonable lines of inquiry. And reasonable lines of inquiry mean, hopefully, those matters which support guilt and support a prosecution, but also those matters which undermine the safety of a charge and go in the defendant's favor. And when they do that, in order for someone to be charged, there has to be a realistic prospect of conviction. And in the criminal courts, in order for someone to be found guilty, the prosecution have to prove, in the majority of matters of law, or beyond reasonable doubt, or so that a jury is sure that the defendant is guilty of the offence. And as you say, it's very different in civil because it's on the balance of probabilities. Is it more likely than not that something happened? And that's not the end of it in criminal cases either. Once there is a realistic prospect of conviction, evidentially, it must also be in the public interest to proceed with a prosecution. And that can take a variety of factors including the wishes of a victim, the mental state of a defendant, the seriousness of the offense, whether it's possible to deal with the matter by way of caution. And so ultimately there's a lot of decision-making that takes place even before someone is charged with an offense. Yes, because you were saying, I remember you, you brought in one term, there was the mental capability of that person. And you know, uh, Rhys, you know that I have my training in law across that, but not as specific as yourself. It's something that I took because I want to be on the same platform, as I've said on many shows, to connect. And like when I can connect with you, understand the terminology. If I'm having to interview somebody or write an article on somebody, to actually get it right, understand the terminology so that I I don't mess up, of course, myself being in, in a court, in a civil one, because I'm going to be sued. You know, that's one of the reasons for that. However, it fascinates me in that when we do see this, is mental health plays a huge factor in these cases. And you see people's outcry in the general public, quite rightly, on a lot of cases, that they say that they don't feel justice has been served, um, that person has being found guilty but on diminished responsibility, and it's not often that that happens, is it? No, it's very rare, and diminished responsibility is only available as a— it's what we call a partial defence. It's only available for certain offences, and the main one, of course, being murder. Someone can be guilty of manslaughter by virtue of diminished responsibility. The slightly different way that works with other offenses is where someone's not fit to enter a plea, and that means that they're either not able to properly instruct their legal team, not able to follow proceedings, not able to understand the process, and importantly, to do what's called challenge a juror. And so if someone's not fit to do any of those things, what we do is we have a fact-finding hearing. And that effectively is a determination of whether or not the defendant did the act rather than if they're guilty of an offence. And what can follow from that is a detention under the Mental Health Act with or without restrictions, or a community supervision requirement, or a form of discharge. And so that's a slightly different avenue that defendants go down where they're not fit to stand trial. And they have a degree of protection in relation to that. But diminished responsibility is a very narrow area, rather than being a wholesale defence that's applied across the criminal justice system. Yeah, so obviously for the listener, we've just— as Rhys has put some very clear analysis and explanation on diminished responsibility under mental health. What do you think— excuse me— in your own mind when there is a representation of diminished responsibility, the actual mental capability of that person? What— has something happened to them? Are they— are they suffered acute trauma, chronic trauma? Um, have they had— like with Fred West, Fred Fred West was a clean-living guy until he was 19, but when I was speaking to Dr. Ashok Jansari, he made reference to Fred West and said he had suffered a head injury. And he, you know, the belief was this is that something had happened and this trauma to his brain then altered his personality, that perhaps that he then you know, his mental capability changed. So diminished responsibility is quite a— well, it's set out in statute. So we have sort of two sections to our legal system in the criminal justice world. We have that which is set out in statute, it's in black and white, and we have that which is set out at common law. For example, there's no piece of legislation that says murder is illegal, no piece of legislation that says it's an offence. It's, it's an offence by virtue of common law. But in terms of diminished responsibility, it effectively is that a defendant can't be convicted of murder if they were suffering from what we call an abnormality of mental functioning. And then there are three things that follow from that. That abnormality has to come from a recognized medical condition, and so you need an expert, you need a doctor, usually two doctors, to say, yes, it is a recognized mental condition, a medical condition. It then has to substantially impair the defendant's ability to either understand their conduct to form rational judgment, or to exercise self-control. And so it has to relate to one of those three things. And finally, it has to provide an explanation for the defendant's acts and omissions in what they did as part of the alleged murder. So it's quite a formulaic approach. In terms of, as a general rule, what triggers it, what causes it, the, the answer is it varies. Because what you can find is, if we go broader than just diminished responsibility, a lot of people in the criminal justice system are suffering from underlying mental health difficulties that simply haven't been diagnosed. And it's only when, in many cases unfortunately, they're charged with a serious offense and there are the resources to look at it, and also the triggers to look at it, that these things are diagnosed. In terms of sort of trigger events and acute things, that often is more likely to relate to a loss of control, and that's what we call a qualifying trigger for why it takes place. That doesn't even need to be psychological, you know. We saw relatively recently the lengthy trial about the woman who'd killed her husband. She was seen on body-worn footage shortly after saying 'Oh, have I killed him? Good.' You know, there are elements there, there are elements there, of course, of mental well-being, but that loss of control didn't arise in that case. And one thing I would say, and it's always very difficult not to get drawn into commenting on the cases when you read things in the media, but the reality is in that case and in every case that's dealt with, there are 12 members of the jury who've been directed by the judge, who've heard all of the evidence and our jury system is as good as it gets in terms of establishing guilt or innocence, and so I always try to refrain from commenting on verdicts because you simply don't know unless you were sat through the trial and you know what directions of law were given, you know what evidence was heard, and it's generally best to refrain from passing comment. But to go back to your question, it quite frankly varies. Some people can have a long-running lead-up to an abnormality of mental functioning. In some people, it can simply arise at a time when the offense, the alleged offense, takes place. Yes, um, when you're saying about when the alleged offense took place, is that is where you have to break down and see if there's— as you were saying, generally speaking, the people that are brought to a criminal court have underlying mental health issues that haven't been addressed, why this is happening, or why they keep coming back or reoffending until it can be stopped and dealt with by professionals that aren't available to everybody. They don't have the money. If they're, you know, having these issues and, and wondering why, it's not until something's gone wrong that you can look at it and correct it and then, you know, offer the rehabilitation. Um, I interviewed a wonderful, uh, consultant forensic clinical, um, psychologist for the Scottish Board of, um, the Abuse Inquiry on a two-part race, um, that is coming out, and her in-depth thing that said you know, there wasn't many people in the criminal world that she did not know that had underlying abuse or mental health issues. She wasn't saying everybody was meant to, you know, the mental health issues, they just suffered some form of trauma. Yeah, an undiagnosed trauma, whether it being, um, simple trauma in classification 1 of acute or Secondly, you know, the most profound one being chronic, you know, with these things have, you know, gone on to further issues and with the mental health that's in there. And as you're saying, with these triggers, like you said, what causes a trigger and what causes something to somebody that, you know, which is an event— they could have been involved in a car crash. And been hit with trauma, which is a shock to your system, a shock to your brain to go out. And they're involved in this car accident. And there's something that you specialize in, is in, uh, motoring offenses, isn't it? Yeah. And yeah, I mean, you know, when we look at the scene there, so somebody that was completely normal before being in a car at a scene where, A, there may have been fatalities and shock and seeing something like that, to having injuries themselves, coming out from that with a trauma that sometimes can lead that person that has been in that traumatic experience to then commit a crime. Yeah, it comes down to understanding what's taken place and understanding the background. And as you say, that there are various trigger points that people in hitherto law-abiding lives, and these things happen and they fall into, and whether rightly or wrongly, you know, we— it's not my place to comment on people's responsibility for where they find themselves, but there are these specific events that take place that then cause this chain reaction to carry on. And you see it quite regularly. A lot of the time it's breakdowns in relationships, deaths of close family members, and people that lose, in many ways, support networks that they had and unfortunately become involved in crime. And in many cases, even more unfortunately, become entrenched in that. Yeah. So as a, uh, You know, you're currently specializing in, in motor offenses and criminality. Do you work for the defendant or the prosecution? I would say 98% of the time I'm defending. Um, at the moment, in fairness, I'm doing less motoring, but previously had dealt with, um, just about every type of motoring offense going. And what that tends to be, it's fair to say, is less of your— and I hate to make generalisations— less of what you would say was your stereotypical person that finds themselves in the criminal justice system. They tend to be on drink driving, speeding. They tend to be people of good character who've not been before the courts before. They tend to be people that you wouldn't think were in that position. But due to either poor decision-making or, as you said before, triggers, they find themselves in that position. And it's also people that rely very heavily on their driving license that you end up realizing that for some people, actually losing their driving license for 2 years would be more of a punishment than 3 years— and sorry, it's rather than 3 months in prison, which I know I always found was a shock. But there are some people that those are their priorities. So they would— you felt they would rather go to jail and come out and do 3 months and have their driving license rather than lose their driving license for 2 years and be free of jail? Yeah, bizarre. It's a totally alien concept to me. It's completely bizarre, isn't it? Yeah, but that's, you know, they're people who rely on their driving license for work, for employment, for even their own business in some instances, and even actually certain people who have it as a hobby, that their hobby is driving and they'd rather take a short-term shock than not be able to do that. But as we always say, it's not— as a barrister, as a lawyer, you're not there to judge either guilt or innocence or whether you think someone's approach to sentence is sensible or not. Ultimately, the latter is the decision of the client, and the former is the decision of the jury or the magistrates if you're in the magistrates' court. Yeah. Do you find in your career— I mean, we've just had a very high-profile motoring conviction being placed on somebody, which I'm sure I'm allowed to say because she's convicted. Yep. Yeah. Which has caused a huge um, out quite— and actually could be used in, you know, Price v. the Court in later terms. If you've got somebody, would you use that, that, you know, in front of a judge? Well, Katie Price, you know, yes, she was asked to go and get some medical help and went to the Priory, um, and she was told she would possibly face jail. But got away with that. And, you know, again, she's gonna— haven't got her driving license, where people felt that she got off far too lightly. And that the police, you know, there was, um, stuff put in media, as you know, work in the media, that possibly the police would be looking at that sentence to overturn. She should have got something else, but it all seems to have died down at the moment in the media, um, with her. We all know Katie Price has been suffering for several years with mental health issues. And, and I'm a strong believer that we should not throw a stone at someone with mental health. And there are times of triggers that come out. She's under immense pressure in the, in the care and love she's done for her son and her children and trying to find a balance. She's got a mother that is terminally ill, you know, trying to find love. And there's mental health issues that need to be addressed. For her, for her, for her own sake, because she's just doing this repetitive stuff, you know. Um, it's my view, uh, you know, where I've studied, uh, mental health, and I'm an advocate for it. I'm an advocate that people get help and notice that help is there. And if you've fallen, there's no shame in falling. What you do is deal with the core root of the problem and be free of that to be happy and live a happy life and understand what happiness means. Otherwise, this wheel keep turning, the reoffending, etc., like that. Um, a lot of people feel that she hasn't been taught a lesson. Do you feel when you're representing somebody in court and, you know, you've got the victim, etc., across from you, um, and think, well, you know, you— he's got off a really light sentence, he's barrister, you, you get quite a bit of abuse, don't you, being a barrister, when somebody's got a a lesser sentence than what the victim of that expects. So in terms of sentencing, there are 3 main aims of the sentencing regime in criminal justice. The first is punitive. The idea is that if you've committed an offense, you should be punished. The second is preventative, so trying to stop it happening again. And the final one, and in many ways the one that when you're defending you concentrate on, is rehabilitative. Katie Price's case was unusual because she first appeared before the magistrates in custody. She'd been remanded following a charging decision to charge her for driving whilst disqualified, and it's right that she had a number of previous convictions for it, and I say for it, for driving offences. She was given, um, on her first appearance at the court when she pleaded guilty, what is called a deferred sentence. She was in effect told, well, if you go away, check into rehab, then you won't go to prison. That, that is very unusual in the Magistrates' Court. And D Chair, District Judge Amanda Kelly, dealt with the sentence, and she effectively said that her hands were tied, which they were, because a, a lay bench of magistrates— in the Magistrates' Court, you're either dealt with by 3 normal people who aren't legally qualified who are advised by someone who is legally qualified, or you're dealt with by what's called a District Judge. The first time she appeared was before what we call lay magistrates, and they said, well, if you don't commit any further offences and if you comply with what we've said, you won't go to prison. And when she came back before the District Judge having complied with everything, she was duly given a suspended sentence, which was 16 weeks imprisonment, which actually is the highest sentence to— that she could have had where she pleaded guilty. And she suspended that, which means essentially if she commits another offense in the next 12 months, unless it is unjust to do so, that sentence will be activated. Now, in terms of dealing with representing someone where the victim's in court. The more difficult cases are those where it's a high-profile case and, and people will know about it. My head of chambers has just dealt with Wayne Cousins and, and arguing that he should not receive a whole life order for the murder and false imprisonment, kidnap, and rape of Sarah Everard. He of course has received abuse for that because unfortunately it comes with the territory. And one thing that you learn not to do very quickly as a defense barrister is when your cases are reported in the media is not to read the comments about what's said about you for your decision to represent people. What many people don't realize is that in the world of criminal defense barristers you have what's called the cab rank rule. If a case comes along and you have time and are suitably qualified to deal with it and the fee is proper, then you are duty-bound to accept it. You can't turn around and say, 'Oh, I don't fancy that one, sorry, I'm not going to do it.' It's like someone waiting at a taxi rank. And so it's important to remember it's not a conscious decision to do that case. Sometimes we have to represent people we may not want to represent or we may disagree with, but you have a duty to act in their best interests and to provide the best service you possibly can. And so in terms of how you manage your mitigation, it's of course much more straightforward when victims aren't present, because you'll always be conscious that what you're saying, you don't want it to amount to victim blaming. You're simply trying to mitigate and to explain how offenses happened. But of course, it ends up having an effect on everyone that's involved, both victim, defendant, and also those who are in the court system dealing with it. Yeah, because that is abuse, you know. And what people— I don't think, Tekkie, you know, when we're looking at this, and, you know, everybody, you know, sometimes will be subject to some form of abuse, mentally with your own mental mind that can't cope with the daily stresses, the pressures, that is all part of mental health. And the great thing I believe now, and what I'm trying to do, is highlighting that we must address mental health. We must have some form of knowledge of what mental health is. It's not, you know, where they're shut away like some freak put away in the institutions. It was deemed years and years ago, Rhys, wasn't it? You know, um, as if, you know, that there was something— you must have been born abnormal, deformed, or, or something like that. You were hidden away. Mental health is real, and we need to do it. We need to know that if that person sitting next to you, even when you're at work, is suffering, that you notice some signs, because if things go unnoticed, these triggers happen. And for yourself, I, I, being in the media, you know, and covered the Sarah Everard murder, I was at Clapham, you know, when, you know, the police, you know, broke out on that, the anger that was suppressed around that. And yes, I did see police officers pushing and kicking and stuff. And some, you know, there was, Rhys, some tormenting, as you saw. And, you know, Priscilla Dick herself would have seen those images. But there was also activists that were gone there to actually ruin it. But it was about a clear, simple message when Kate Middleton was there, was for women to be safe. And when we're looking at any reporting, and if you, even as a media representative and writing something, we have to be careful. You know, there are trolls or people quick to, you know, as activists or people to hurt or hurt us as the professional. And what, you know, why are you doing that? Why are you covering that? I was the one that obviously broke where Wayne Covenants lived, you know, his house was there. I had the guys on from ITN News. I was there covering. Next thing, it was a swarm. My photographs were in The Times. I, um, a third-party business partner for The Times, The Sun, I, you know, with the Dow Jones check and everything, procedures that have to be done to put that in. And obviously the removal of the car and what was happening, you know, interviewing people and that there. But you get subject to abuse, and you know, you take that when you're covering these stories mentally, you— that is in your mind, and you have to go home and unwind after these things and try not to affect your own mental health by being absorbed into it and trying to keep a protective barrier around your own mind, your own mental health. To deal with this directly as a professional. And like you were saying regarding, uh, your colleague, you know, from Chambers that's had to cover Wayne Cousins and going there, whether he likes it or not, it's a duty. He has a duty and a responsibility under the law, for which when he came to the bar was to, um, see that through. It's why we have a very good legal system in it. Sometimes things go wrong, yes, and we're saying with juries, um, that— but in this country you're innocent until proven guilty, and we do it other than, you know, America, you know. And when I go to America and we see stuff there and we're reading that on the news, it seems to be, uh, their trial is by media, you know. I often find out you can get them in the court when all this is being said, etc. And we've just got basically this mistrial with the Maxwell case, because one of the jurors then went to the media, left out his first name, used the middle name. And, um, 230 people were interviewed to sit on that jury, like we have here, that were given a sheet. She's saying, did you have any mental health issues? Have you ever been abused, etc., on there? And he put no. But now the defense argued that he should have been prosecuted because he misled. That's untrue. He knew what that was, and he basically— but what I can see is used the flight and freeze syndrome to say he couldn't recall that, you know, because of a trigger and blocking it out. Now we have a situation where that trial's got to rerun again, and by that trial rerunning again and on the media And when these things are highlighted in media, and again, as you know, in our jobs and what we do, things are highlighted through that, that these cause triggers. So when people are engaging into that, into listening to that news or waiting for a result from— it triggers other people's own mental health that may have been abused or things have suffered. But then all of a sudden, when you're reading media, I also suffered, but I didn't come out and say that. You know, then you just hear all these other stories. You get other people that say, well, if this happened, why did this not, you know, come out earlier? You know, when we've got in our law system, um, you know, if we sign a non-disclosure, um, then that's lawful going in there. But obviously with the UK's defense team, which are fighting over Andrew at the moment, which is mind-boggling in that way, because if you signed and done an agreement here, you know, and it's to be kept sealed, how can that not be present in there? And it's an argument that we could go on and on with that, but we're looking at the mental capabilities, etc., on that. But as we're going back again, saying to yourself, with the abuse, people are quick to throw stones and, and hurt that. How can you possibly defend that person because their own anger that's coming through. But under our law, we have to follow the way of the law, which is innocent until proven guilty, with all the evidence, all the facts put in place, with jurors that are sitting on there directed by the judge on point of law. And if there's certain points of law that they can't hear, they are asked to leave a courtroom and while that is being discussed by councils and the judge, etc., so it does not give any due cause for them to lead them in the wrong direction because they might have heard something. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And you know what judges always say when they start a case? Is that the jury are the tribunal of fact. The judge is there to deal with the law, and it's sort of a gatekeeper of what evidence the jury should hear and what evidence they shouldn't hear. It's one of the protections, and in many ways, one of the other protections is the fact that there's a lawyer there at all, because even for those people who are guilty, it's far better that they are convicted after a trial that's been dealt with fairly rather than going through the judicial system alone and potentially asking witnesses inappropriate questions themselves, having people represented, even if on the face of it they are guilty, ensures that justice is done both properly and safely. Yeah, because you could have somebody, and under the law, under the criminal procedure, you can stand there and defend yourself. But if you are suffering and defending yourself because you actually have gone not guilty, but you're going to go up and you're going to do this yourself without independent people being there, people that can assess, or even with councils or solicitors to say, well, you might notice in your own first interview with these people that you notice, and you're hardly trained to see if there's a trigger where you would bring in consultant forensics. Psychologists, etc., um, to get the right, uh, mental health help before they go in. But this person doesn't realize that they are having an issue and trying to defend themselves and with their own, um, issues that they are suffering, which they're not quite aware of, could be interviewing somebody and inflicting even harsher mental health on that person rather than going through the justice system. Do you believe that we should be eradicating the freedom to defend ourselves and that if we replace it, you know, because you are entitled under law to be represented, to have that person that understands the judicial system to get the correct result all round? And now I mean, as I said, it's such a safeguard ensuring that everyone is legally represented and everyone understands what the law is, because self-defense, although it sounds straightforward or someone's either acting in self-defense or they're not, it's actually more complicated than that. It has to have— they have to have acted reasonably. The force they use has to be proportionate to the threat that they faced. It can't just be a case that if someone's threatening to slap me, I turn around and shoot them. Now, that's not self-defense, and by having proper advice, it means that that's deployed properly and understood properly. Because one thing I will say is that, as a general rule, and almost in all cases, the jury gets it right, and that's partly because we have a legal system that's understood and, more importantly, a legal system that's explained. Do you find, you know, when we're talking about juries and the pressure— and there's mental pressure on them as well, there must be fear, you know. If they've gone into court, they've been called to jury service, you're put into a room, maybe 60 of you, where you are then picked to do certain cases that will be going on. And, you know, some people actually think, oh great, I've got jury service, and actually look forward to it, where others actually mentally fear it and try their best to get out of it because they fear, oh, you can be followed, or family members. Because when they're going to court, it doesn't take long for family members to be sitting in a gallery noticing who the jurors are. Those jurors have got to come out that court and they've got to go to their vehicles, and they could be out of camera sight somewhere else where it's just them all watched or followed, you know, that must be quite fearful. I've never actually done jury service, so, and as you never actually know what's discussed within the jury room, it's all kept secret. All we get told about is when the jury asks a question, they send a note to the judge to say, oh, can you help us with this? But I can certainly understand that if somebody was involved in a case where there were threats made or there was something in the background that made people uncomfortable, that they would feel nervous and stressed themselves and it would have an impact on them. A lot of people remark on the fact that we ask jurors to look at quite harrowing material in many cases and there's no support for them. We simply don't say— mentally, again, for the jurors, there is no mental support for them. You know, I— when I was speaking to Anne, you know, the abuse, um, and children, you know, as well as murders and stuff like that. Not saying that that puts anybody that's been burgled— the horrifying effect— I'm just trying to hone in on these couple of things that if I sat on the jurors and I was dealing with, um, child abuse, you know, and what's happened to that child— there's been one recently, hasn't there, where the person was convicted, what happened to that little child, you know, that, you know, even left messages saying, I'm hungry, you know, to be on that and go home and be able to switch off from that. We, you know, that's what I'm saying about mental health. We should have a support mechanism in place in all workplaces that people can speak about. So if you are a juror on it, that they are allowed to receive at least 6, 7 weeks, or maybe 8 weeks free mental health, to speak to a therapist or, you know, somebody to actually help, because they could end up having an acute trauma themselves by just sitting on a trial and not being able to deal with their own emotions and switching off, not being able to talk about it when they get home. 'Are you doing that, child?' They're not allowed to say what they're doing. They have to do it open eyes and not allowed to speak to anybody about it. But after that conviction's gone through, and then, you know, your daughter's gone to school and went, 'Oh, my mummy— where's your mummy?' 'Oh, my mummy was on jury.' 'Did your mummy send him to jail?' You know, 'Well, how come he got off?' You know, and the child gets it, it comes on with that. There should be a support mechanism in place, you know, and that's something that I'm sure that with the enhanced light shining on mental health, we have to look at that. We have to look at you as a barrister or anyone in those procedures or, you know, that's going on. I mean, in respect to that, let's look at Chris Whitty. Chris Whitty was only doing his job to announce to the public about COVID You know, and media following, and then he was attacked and hurt. That, you know, we— nobody has the right to inflict any pain on anybody or do that. But unfortunately, there are perpetrators in, in our world, and it will always have perpetrators because we do not live in this perfect glass alienated world, do we? No. And, and the way Chris Whitty was treated was appalling. And we've seen sentences already that go some way to deal with that, but that will always be the problem of being in the public eye, is that you place yourself at risk of being treated like that, wrongly so. But where we've looked at that, we also get, when we look at public and high-profile people, Ruth, that we get people, you know, obviously Katie Price is taking a huge battering at the moment rights and wrongs. I'm completely sitting here as you are, unjudgmental and unbiased, because I have that platform and I don't— will not comment on my personal feelings, when that— I will sit in the understanding, the education I've taught my brain to understand the legal procedure and the mental health procedure, as you have done, as Chambers doing, the people are on there. Um, and obviously I hope that Katie never finds herself in that position again, as you would do with anybody that leaves court, and, you know, learn from this, rehabilitate, and go forward with your journey. But you do get people in the higher profile— celebrity footballers, for one. And they could, you know, Jags, don't just pick on the footballers. I'm not saying that, but there are in sports, etc., you know, they live a very high glamour life, all these fast cars, you know, and speeding. And I think sometimes in the media, you know, when we reported, you know, and they've come out and they've got away, oh, he didn't mean to, he was having a, you know, having a day like that. But some of them, I think sometimes we think that these soap operas think they are above the law and to be qualified, or they get off with lesser sentences or stuff like that. Again, in the sentences that are brought down, because obviously as general, you know, and to get the conviction or the person that's right and to come off. At the same time, they could also be pushed and followed to think, oh, this could be an easy catch. I myself got 3 points on my speeding, for speeding, many, many years ago. Christ, that must be going back to about 1987, Rhys. Yeah, I was going up this road. I had, um, the old Volkswagen convertible, you know, the little white one, and my cousin and, and yeah, and Lakeside had only just opened, so that's giving away my age, gosh. And we were going up, I was going up this road, it didn't have a sign, you know, all my hair done blonde, my cousin going about 35 miles an hour. Unbeknownst to me, because I was going uphill, it, you know, um, it was a 30 mile an hour, but it you know, I did not— there was no sign at the beginning. And then as I approached going through, you could see the national speed limit from that. This car, unmarked cars behind me, right, which you need to start coming up towards your tail and going through. And I thought, so I put my foot down, so I broke the speed limit before I crossed that, got to the top of the roundabout as this car's up. I thought, why are you hanging on my tail? You know, feeling quite nervous. So fortunately, as I got on top, there was a roundabout, and I went into the petrol station. I thought, well, I'll go. That car may have gone, because I felt quite fearful for it. It was an unmarked police car, and they pulled you over? Yeah, and said, you know, you were speeding, doing 35 in a 30 mile an hour going up. And I said, would you look? I said, I don't want to look at the video. I know what I was doing, but I didn't know who you was behind. And I felt quite friend. But I got my points on the license. I didn't go any further with it, but I felt that was— I was unjustly given those points. You know, I was only— Christ, was I 20 years of age? Something like that. Young naive girl going on and thinking, well, you know, but why was I being pushed? But at the same time, I was breaking the law, and the point of law would say you broke that law, you were doing 35 in that, but I speeded more because I felt— you know when somebody's on your tail, when you like that. So my experience of that was I felt in a situation that I probably could have been not in. Because I was chatting as well as driving and going up there, you know, having the music playing on, the roof was down, you know, I was an easy— I felt I was an easy target. And that's what we were saying before, isn't it? You never really know the circumstances as to where someone finds themselves committing even a minor criminal offence, and often there can be an explanation for it. Yeah. So when you do have 3 points on your licence, Does that, as you're saying, a minor criminal offence, it is a criminal offence, you broke the law, does that then affect you for your character? Well, it's not what we call a recordable offence because you'll have been dealt with by way of a fixed penalty notice, and a fixed penalty notice effectively is an agreement between you and the state that you'll accept your responsibility for the offence. You'll receive 3 penalty points and therefore it doesn't get recorded on what we call your police conviction printout. And so in terms of character, you would still be considered as someone of good character. And if it was a more serious motoring offence that was dealt with actually at court, then you may well end up with an actual previous conviction. Yeah. Do you find in your job when you're dealing with motor fatalities and dealing with that. Obviously, you know, as you will see, you know, there's been accidents on the motorways. And even as you know, you're a follower on my Twitter, when the news is going on, then we've reported, you know, it's been a fatality, everything like that. And also that person goes, what happens regarding that then? Because obviously with law, you know, stuff that we study and we know certain— we do specialize in separate subjects. People may look on my LinkedIn and say, well, you've got criminal law, you've got this, but there's a vast area that you cover, isn't it? Mine's just an oversight in these areas of mental health and the touch on to know. And it tends to follow when you're doing contract law to criminal because the same reason of common law, it all connects, doesn't it, you know, with probates and wills and what we're doing in there. But for you, you've got specialist subject, and that's what you— if somebody needs, uh, has been convicted and they need to go to court— sorry, not convicted, charged— I need to go to court regarding a criminal, but maybe a celebrity, because, you know, we've seen a few celebrities that, um, have gone to jail due to driving, haven't they? Yeah. Um, and what happened with that is somebody, you know, they are entitled again to representation under the English law. What— when somebody's taken a life by, um, by that— and, and the reason why I'm asking this, I have a personal, uh, situation. My brother was killed, um, in a car accident Yeah, and, um, you know, it had a, an inquest for my brother. We turned my brother's life support machine off. Um, we then had to deal with the coroner who then began to get himself— and I'm not going to go into that because it's a long time ago and it will set a trigger for me— into— except that, um, a process, a legal process, went involved into that. And going on. But because I can't physically and emotionally speak out myself about that, because as you can imagine, that was a very— another, which we call trauma, that I faced through that, and something that you deal with yourself. But generally what happens, you know, for this, when you've gone by and what happens in the jurid— the judicial system And why you're called in on something like that? Well, it depends on whether there is criminal liability. So similar situation, not quite the same as yours, that my cousin was killed in a road traffic accident and you're— the individuals involved are interviewed by police, their statements are taken there'll be a forensic collision scene investigator who will effectively do a reconstruction, try and work out what caused it, what the standard of driving was that led to it, and then that material will likely go to the police and then to the Crown Prosecution Service for a charging decision. And all throughout that, we sort of have the inquest as a parallel proceeding. And the inquest isn't there to say someone is guilty or not guilty, but is effectively to record a cause of death. And that could of course be accident, road traffic collision, or can be a narrative verdict, which is where a coroner says, well, here's my ruling, here's my verdict as to what happened. And that can include comment on the actions of third parties and the action of the state. But if we have a situation where someone is charged, or even in many ways where someone is interviewed, and my involvement as a lawyer can be at the interview stage, people are then charged, bailed, or released under investigation, or made the subject of a no further action, which effectively means their involvement in the investigation is at an end. If they're charged, and let's say it's an offence of causing death by dangerous driving, and they're charged, they'll go to the magistrates' court, they'll enter a plea guilty or not guilty or give no indication. The case will be sent to the Crown Court, and if there's a not guilty plea, then there has to be a trial. And as you'll appreciate, okay, Jay, that, that can have a really serious impact on, on the victim's family because there's often no doubt in cases like that someone is a victim, whether or not the driver as such a standard that the defendant is guilty of the offense, that, that still doesn't mean that someone isn't a victim. And those sorts of cases can be extremely difficult for everyone involved. Yes, we have one currently, don't we? Um, that poor, um, guy that lost his life, you know, been dealing with America about it, and she's going to face criminal charges, isn't she? But through— and Sakoulas. Yeah, I mean that case has been carrying on for a really long time, and it's as a result of pressures placed and also the decision taken by the Crown Prosecution Service that eventually there's a charge laid and proceedings are going to be commenced. But as you say, that case, it's continued and it's had a huge effect on so many people. Yes, because, you know, even like you lost your cousin in a car accident, I lost my brother, and people have lost people, and like, then they want justice. And you do want justice. You've taken a life, and, you know, as much as you— they ask for a victim statement and how that has affected you, that has caused a trauma. That, you know, you never get over. My parents never got over the death of my brother, as I haven't even to this day. As the people in life yourself, you, but you learn every day to live with that, and you, you know, you carry on. They've gone, and you, you try and focus on the memories that are going on, um, because the mental health— and when we do get in a car, we will— we are coming to a close on this wonderful insight in, and I hope it's helped the listener as we have talked quite freely and you freed your own mind about, you know, stuff that, pressures that you do have and you have to protect your own mental health. Mental health plays a huge factor in this. Is there a message that you would like to leave as your legacy of this, um, show in how you would educate somebody to, you know, to try with this mental health, um, or with the criminality. Is this something that empowers you in a speech, or something you would say to a client when they left and you've, you know, this has been dealt with, now sort your life out sort of thing, and get the help? Is there something like that you would like to say, or, you know, or encroach upon? Well, as I said earlier on, the aims of the criminal justice system are not limited to punishment. And so it's not a case of where someone pleads guilty or is convicted that they are simply being punished. And what we find increasingly is that those who enter into the criminal justice system as defendants actually are presented with opportunities. And the clients that, that I certainly enjoy representing the most are those who in many ways get something out of the, the experience that they have. And they take the opportunity and the support they're offered to move away from crime, to address their mental health issues, to address and understand who they are, and to actually turn what, what's clearly a negative at the outset ultimately at its conclusion into a positive. Yes, and that is the thing, if somebody has done that and they have rehabilitated Do you feel the person that's rehabilitated, who said, oh, they did this, they did that, do you feel, you know, because I believe in rehabilitation, that it's a very powerful tool mentally to use, you know, and there are different things that, like Anne said, some people need to have the experience of prison to understand and get to the real root cause of that. It's dealing with the root cause when you've dealt with it and to move on. But if somebody has rehabilitated, you know, and they've come back and they've never done anything again, do you think society and the people that have seen this person go through that, that they allow them to be free as that and not to punish them anymore? Ah, the difficulty with that is I think it depends on people's individual circumstances. I have a lot of admiration for companies such as Simpsons that, you know, give people the opportunity to move on from mistakes. There is still a degree of stigma towards those who have been in the criminal justice system, but that— there's no doubt that's improving. And there's also a great improvement in the facilities and courses that are offered within a custodial environment. And things are getting better, but it's difficult. There's no doubt at all that it's difficult that people who have been of good character come before the courts and are convicted of an offense, they are inevitably affected for a very long time by what's taken place. So even when they're— what is it they call it? If somebody's been convicted What term do they use? Spent. Yeah. And they have spent. Is that gone then and they are free to, you know, they don't include that anymore, that that person is now rehabilitated and their time is spent and they've gone on? Well, we have what's called the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act, which sets out the time it takes for an offense to be spent, and it can depend on what offense it is and also what sentence is received. What we also had, and there was a case late last year which dealt with what we call filtering, which is where the rules change as to when you have your, um, your DBS check as to what's actually shown on it. Yeah. And you, you, I think people are probably quite pleased to hear that that's changing as well, that now there is far more filtering in terms of minor convictions and importantly convictions that people have from when they are a youth, from when they're under 18, that are no longer shown on that DBS check. So yeah, things are spent, um, but in certain circumstances that still has to be disclosed. Ah, well, thank you for that, and thank you for coming on the show. We are at the end and we have to say goodbye, and thank you so much, Rhys Rossa, for freeing your mind, and goodbye.