Felix | Television: a great crime prevention tool

How exciting that a new series of Silk tarted on television. On the one hand I am a little surprised to see it back at all – surely in this new age of quality assessment and reappraisal it should have been required, like its real-life aspirant subjects, to fill in an application form explaining why it wanted to go on television, what it thought it brought to the role of a television programme, why it was particularly suited to the slot of prime time television and, lastly, provide a whole load of references from other more senior television programmes (Rumpole of the Bailey, Kavanagh QC, Crown Court even) to say that it is a jolly good programme and just the right sort of thing that the public needs.

In the same way, much as the barristers are gorgeous – I have only seen the trailers so far so it is clear that they are – I wonder how any of the silks who are the stars of the show have actually got their achievement bearing in mind that they too would have to fill in a form to get it. What the viewing public is really missing out on in this gritty depiction of life at the sharp end of the criminal Bar is the gripping episode when one of the aspirational characters spends at least one whole programme filling in the application form for QC status. Sadly there are no boxes on the form that are headed ‘Pithy one liners delivered’ or ‘Emotional attachment to clients’ or ‘Political shenanigans in chambers’.

I remember the original television programme called Crown Court (it must have taken ages to think up the name). It went out at lunchtimes on one of the old ITV companies and it was all rather gripping in the way that did not involve a lot of sex and shenanigans. The barristers were all very proper and the judges were all very old and the defendants and witnesses all seemed to be pretty normal. The best bit about it was the different music that the programme played out to depending on the verdict. The adjournments (for adverts) were always preceded and followed by a trumpet interlude type thing that impressed on everyone the grandeur and majesty of the proceedings. But if the defendant was convicted the programme would play out to a rather mournful, reflective strings piece, that seemed to sum up the fall and folly of man, the waste of years, the tears that were to fall, the hard and sad place that mankind found itself in again, the regret and the loss of youth, innocence, love, beauty, clang of the prison gates, etc.

TV tour

Perhaps in the never-ending war on crime we should take a leaf out of Crown Court’s book (if you see what I mean). As part of a crime prevention programme well-meaning crime prevention workers could tour schools with a number of clips of TV footage. The first would be the great fly-on-the-wall documentary about A&E, to cut down on binge boozing, fights, assaults and stabbings. Then there could be a nice long one of a ceiling, and nothing else, to make it plain that being locked up in prison is very boring when it is not frightening. And then there could be a clip from Prisoners’ Wives, which was excellent at showing the grief that is visited upon the loved ones who wait on the outside. And finally, after all that, the sad regretful piece of music from Crown Court could be played, where everyone reflects mournfully what a lot there is to lose by going inside. Wannabe villains would be sobbing at the prospect of such regret and would resolve to maintain their ways unbroken immediately and permanently.

Reality check

The trouble is that potential felons need to understand that they are not going to be defended by a glamorous, punchy silk like Maxine Peake. They may get the firm’s HCA; they may get an unglamorous bloke or an unglamorous woman. They may find that in real life they have got a lot more to worry about than how glamorous their brief is. It will be a let down. They also need to know that there is unlikely to be some great cross-examination where the witness breaks down and confesses, or the doors of the court fly open and the last-minute witness arrives to save the day. What we need to get over to the public is that, in comparison with their fictional cousins, criminal trials are, for the most part, pretty boring and involve an awful lot of hanging about. When there is a programme where the most exciting part of the trial is somebody knocking over a carafe of water, the public will get a true sense of perspective

Anyway – hurrah for Silk and all its silky goings on. It is a great programme, great TV and of course does have its roots in what it knows it is talking about. But a quick message to certain sections of the viewing public might not go amiss: Martha Costello is a very busy practitioner, and she probably won’t be available to defend you.