Amal’s a terrific barrister, a lovely mother, a fabulous dresser. Aways was, long before she got involved with George. She has a great eye

Eve Was Framed was highly contentious, dismissed as nonsense 25 years ago. How ridiculous that I was saying these things! Eventually, it was acknowledged.

“We got some change. Many things have improved. Undoubtedly. At the very least we have many more women in the law and on the bench, although the number of women judges is still very low. It’s not great in Scotland either, although when I started there were no women judges. So it has to be better than it was.”

Yet here she is again, deeply frustrated that a new book on gender inequality and the law appears to be so urgently needed, for now Eve is not only shamed, she is invariably blamed. “Too many new challenges have arisen,” Kennedy insists. She decided to look again at the British justice system as it is experienced by women – whether as defendants, victims or practitioners.

Cataloguing the persistence of misogyny and stereotypes, from whores to wicked women, from the good wife and mother to the “other” woman, she lays bare all the inequality that still exists. She also suggests solutions for change wherever she sees them without undermining the principles that must underpin justice.

“There has to be a demolition job on the structural engineering of society,” she writes. Well, here comes the wrecking ball in the shape of this powerful book.

Her aim is to move the current debate on, following the flood of #MeToo revelations, which Kennedy believes has captured a mood that has been gathering force for several years. The tipping point came, she reckons, in 2012 when the deceased celebrity entertainer Jimmy Savile was exposed as a paedophile and gross abuser of women and children.

“It was as though people had been waiting for permission to talk about their experiences and a flood of historic abuse and discrimination was laid bare. Now, though, it is not just about celebrities and the casting couch, it is about the way women have to live their lives and the debasing wretchedness of continuing gender inequality.

“The new element is the internet, which has stirred a rage that has reverberated around the world and led to a huge wave of online discussion.”

She also sees the #MeToo movement as a response to the law’s failure.

“I love the energy of young women, the gusto they are bringing to shouting about what has happened to them. Our generation didn’t. We kept quiet about the hand on the knee, the chasing around the office table, the bottom pinching – and worse. If we complained, we were told to get back in our box. Remember how you felt cheapened by it?

“Now women are angrier than they have ever been, although there is no question of us taking an automatic rifle to men. It is about us saying, ‘Look, this is still going on,’ and it is about ideas of toxic masculinity.