She checked her emails, just in case there was any communication from the recruitment agency – there wasn’t. She took the novel she had brought with her and began to read.

But she only got a few pages in before she suddenly heard her name called out.

28

Thursday 9 May

Richard Jupp sat at his desk in his chambers, sipping a strong coffee he’d brewed himself, both his dogs lying at his feet. The coffee was supplied by a criminal law solicitor called Gerry Maye. Maye was smartly – in Jupp’s view – diversifying from his law practice into coffee importing. Due to reductions in legal aid rates, a large number of law firms had gone to the wall during the past couple of years. It made him gladder than ever that he was a judge, on a comfortable salary and with a good pension ahead.

The round clock on the wall read 9.55. Five minutes to the start and the defendant’s QC, Primrose Brown – a clever barrister who he knew and liked – had just informed him via the clerk of the court, Maureen Sapsed, that a new financial report had only just been received by the defence counsel. More evidence linking Gready to offshore accounts.

Maureen, garbed in the traditional black gown and now nervously standing in front of him, was efficient in the extreme, and always did her very best to keep all court business flowing. But, like himself, she was often driven to distraction by the inefficiencies that dogged the entire legal system. Like all major public services, the court system had been affected by the austerity measures brought in over a decade ago.

The under-funded and therefore under-manned Crown Prosecution Service was in a constant state of false economy. The cost of putting together any major trial was immense. Getting all the witnesses, police officers, prosecution advocates and defence counsel together for a specific date was always a nightmare of scheduling. With a never-ending backlog of trials waiting in the wings, adjourning a case was never a simple matter of putting it back a few days. All the players involved had myriad other commitments. An adjournment would often mean months before all the elements could be assembled again. And with it came another problem. If the accused had been remanded in custody, they could be kept there, by law, for a maximum of six months. There had to be good grounds for an extension.

Sometimes, he said, only partly in jest, that he felt like a shepherd trying to herd cats. It was a major headache to hold all the different, diverse and moving pieces of a trial together.