Now barristers walk out – delaying trials to demand 25% pay rise
A STRING of criminal trials were halted yesterday as barristers staged walkouts in a row over legal aid pay rates and working conditions.
Junior barristers, many in robes and wigs, formed picket lines at Crown courts in Manchester, Leeds, Cardiff, Birmingham and Bristol on the first of 14 days of action planned over the next four weeks.
Dozens of striking barristers also stood on picket lines outside London’s Old Bailey, where they were joined by representatives of the RMT union, which paralysed the country’s rail network during last week’s walkouts by 40,000 of its members.
Barristers seeking a 25 per cent rise protested yesterday despite a warning from the most senior judge in England
‘We are on our knees’
and Wales, Lord Chief Justice Lord Burnett of Maldon, that they could face professional misconduct charges if they failed to turn up for their cases.
Justice Secretary Dominic Raab said the walkouts would ‘delay justice for victims’, with courts already facing a backlog of up to 60,000 cases.
Among the trials halted by the strike was that of James Allchurch, who denies 15 charges of disseminating a sound recording stirring up racial hatred between 2019 and 2021.
The case at Swansea Crown Court was due to start yesterday but the judge adjourned it until Wednesday as Allchurch’s legal counsel did not attend court.
At Bristol Crown Court the trial of Hayley Keating, who is accused of murder, was adjourned until Wednesday.
The Criminal Bar Association (CBA), representing barristers in England and Wales, said more than 1,000 cases are set to be affected by each day of the strikes.
It said 81.5 per cent of its more than 2,000 members voted to support walkouts, with junior barristers also set to refuse new cases or ‘return work’ – taking on court hearings for other colleagues.
Downing Street appealed to barristers to accept a proposed 15 per cent pay rise – which it said would see a typical barrister earn about £7,000 a year more – to cut the time victims wait for justice.
But the CBA insisted a 15 per cent uplift would not benefit its members immediately as it would not apply to the backlog of cases, which a spokesman said could take ‘many years’ to clear. It wants a rise of at least 25 per cent.
CBA chairman Jo Sidhu QC said the sector had seen an average decrease of 28 per cent in real earnings since 2006, and that junior barristers earn a median income after expenses of £12,200 in their first three years of practice, which he said was below the minimum wage.
Speaking outside the Old Bailey, where just three courtrooms were open for cases yesterday morning, Mr Sidhu said many barristers would ‘be doing cases for which they will be paid, for a day’s work, no more than £100.
‘That means they are working sometimes, six, eight, ten hours of preparation, going to court, paying for their own train fare to get there and back, and when they arrive home of an evening, they will have less money in their pocket than when they left.’
He added that barristers were ‘not a privileged species’ and that they were the ‘poor persons of the justice system’.
‘Last year, we lost another 300 criminal barristers, why?’ he asked. ‘Because they could not do this job any more on what they were being paid, and for the hours that they were toiling.’
Outside the Old Bailey, barrister Alejandra Tascon said colleagues faced hundreds of thousands of pounds of debt once they had paid for education and training.
She added: ‘I know that many like myself have grown up in council estates, come from humble beginnings, being state educated and relying on scholarships and loans to get in to this profession.
‘We are on our knees, we cannot survive on below minimum wage. We cannot survive with the way in which we are being paid.’