Mini-pupillage - Day Three

Spent all of the day three in a county court observing a family law case. I was shadowing a different barrister today called Peter. Peter had been with Chambers for about 10 years now. As with most of Chambers' members, he had established broad practice areas, including: criminal, family, civil and a few other more specialist areas. Peter is quite possibly the most-liked member around Chambers and amongst other barristers. I found him to be a really interesting guy that was good around other people - especially Chambers' most recent members.

Peter was representing a mother in her early thirties who was seeking a non-molestation order against a physically and verbally abusive partner. Prior to the arrival of both the applicant and the respondent at court, Peter took time to explain to me what the case was about and he showed me the bundle that he had been given about the case. On the face of it, it was an open-and-shut case - the non-molestation order could easily be granted because there was plenty of reasons for it being in place.

Peter then met with the applicant in one of the court's conference rooms. Also present were the applicant's instructing solicitors. The main issue that was being discussed was the actual details that would be contained in the non-molestation order. This was quite difficult. The applicant did not want, if possible, the respondent to be any where near the family home. However, she was also keen for her partner to be able to work, earn money and contribute to the mortgage they were paying off. In order to do this, her partner had to be able to work in the garage which was on the same land as the family home. This didn't seem to be much of a problem at first. OK: the respondent needed access to the house to use the toilet; but apart from that, there was no reason that he should have to interact with the applicant in any way. Things didn't turn out that way though. The applicant turned out to be a fairly compassionate person and had quite strong feelings towards her partner which she recognised that she shouldn't really have, having suffered physical abuse from him. Peter had the difficult task of trying to anticipate any problems that may arise and dealing with those; but also thinking about the applicant herself and explaining to her what her position would be if she was to her partner into the house willingly and then suffer harm from him.

When we first went before the judge he was mostly concerned with the children's safety and well-being. In one previous incident, the youngest child had sustained a bruise to his eye from the fighting between his parents. So the judge wanted a CAFFCASS representative to look over the case and advise him of the child's safety before he gave the green light to the non-molestation order drafted by Peter.

After a series of meetings with a CAFFCASS officer and long time waiting for him to interview the respective parties, we went back into court again with a slightly different non-molestation order which included changes recommended by CAFFCASS (but which was fundamentally the same in practice). He liked it and that was that.

By the time this all finished it was 16:00. Peter took me for some food and drinks and we had a very enjoyable conversation about some of his up-coming cases and major on-going cases in the news: Darwin the canoeist, Max Mosley and Robert Murat. He asked for my thoughts and shared his own. A very enjoyable end to day three.