Judge attacks barristers for ‘shouting’

 A high court judge attacked barristers after he accused them of turning a child custody hearing into a “shouting match”.

Mr Justice Macdonald said Matthew Persson, Sarah Cooper and Caroline Topping – respectively representing the mother, father and child – had shown a “concerning” tendency “simply to interrupt each other” during the separated parents’ custody dispute at a family court in Chatham, Kent.

At a private hearing in the Family Division of the High Court, London, Mr Justice Macdonald upheld the father’s appeal against the ruling made by the judge at the family court.