William Cleggs Interview on Radio 2 .... A pre recorded Interview.. On Radio 2 today..
A most important insight into his views about people he has defended:
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Steve Wright:
William Clegg QC is with us and we are gonna talk about Williams book. The book is called Under The Wig.William Clegg QC has been a barrister for 47 years and has become the go to lawyer for complex murder and fraud cases.
William is head of one of London's leading chambers and tomorrow he publishes his first book Under The Wig a lawyers stories of murder,guilt and Innocence. It's basically a memoir that takes you behind the scenes of what its like to be a top lawyer. So.. Lets go back and find out your history first of all.
I know that you are from South end on Sea, when did you get into lawyering?
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William Clegg:
Well I went to University in 1968 which er, is exactly 50 years ago, to read law there and after that I became a barrister and started in practice on my own account in 1972.
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Steve Wright: And that was always your intension yer?
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William Clegg: Always was..
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Steve Wright: Why?
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William Clegg: Always was fascinated by the law, I think with the interest stemmed primarily from television, I enjoyed arguing and talking and giving talks and debates and I just thought that it was probably the best job in the world.
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Steve Wright: Perry Mason was largely responsible for you going into the law, thats put what you say in the book...
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Someone: No
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William Clegg: True.. I used to watch Perry Mason every week and he never lost a case. And i thought thats the job for me.
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Steve Wright: You prefer to defend,
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William Clegg: I defend 99% of the time
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Steve Wright: And when you prosecute thats something completely different?
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William Clegg: It is I do it occasionally, i think I'm better suited temperamentally to defending.
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Steve Wright: Oh thats an interesting remark.. why?
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William Clegg: I don't know really, i think as my career has developed i have done more defending therefore I'm more comfortable with it, I've had more success defending in as much my biggest cases have tended to be defence cases ,because of that when I've been offered work it tends to have been bigger defence than bigger prosecution cases.
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Steve Wright: We've all seen programs on television, you mentioned Perry mason earlier on, but we've all seen back in the old days LA Law and all of these programs that depict what it's like within law firms. Is it very much like that? Is there back biting? Is there competitiveness.
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William Clegg: Not so much no.. As a barrister you have to be a member of what we call a set of chambers , which is an office really, that we share the overheads of but we don't share profit. That really in the best way has a collegiate atmosphere, your there to support each other, there is comparatively little jealousy and back biting, and certainly nothing like you see on the television.
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Steve Wright: You talk in the book about making sure that you pay attention to all the details of a particular case, why is that important, because do a jury really follow the detail.
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William Clegg: A jury might not follow all the detail,
but it's essential that you have mastered every detail of a case, in order to ascertain exactly what it is that is most important, what it is that is going to appeal to a jury and even more important than that, dangers of missing something that you night have over looked, that could ultimately lose a case._____________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve Wright: And nervousness before a case and or before a verdict
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William Clegg: One is always nervous before going into court if you're not it's probably time to give up, and the tension before a verdict is returned in a major criminal trial is like no tension you would ever experience in the West End.
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Steve Wright: But surely you know that you've done well, before the verdict.
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William Clegg: You never know..whether you've won or lost
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Steve Wright : really
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William Clegg: You hope you've won you suspect you might have lost, but you never know and a jury can always surprise.
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Steve Wright: Can you sense the way that a case is going because, a case would typically last, what, 2 weeks , 4 weeks. Longer maybe sometimes.
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William Clegg: Some of my cases have lasted over 6 months,
you try all the time to work out what the jury are thinking, whether they like this point, whether they don't like that point, whether they're with you or against you. It's a very inexact science. I've known juries who smile at you for 2 months and then convict in record time, and juries that look as stern as stern can be and come in and find you not guilty in no time at all.
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Steve Wright: umm.. William Clegg is here barrister discussing his book Under The Wig a lawyers stories of Murder, Guilt and Innocence, and we are gonna come back right in a moment don't go..
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Song Playing....... Arthur's Theme by Christopher Cross (Best that you can do)
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Steve Wright: All right... William Clegg barrister, is back with us, his book is called Under The Wig a lawyers stories of Murder, Guilt and Innocence. Looking through the book, I'm quite interested in the way that you have to be, i think you say unemotional about each case. How is that possible?
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William Clegg: Yes.. It is very difficult to remain unemotional, I think it come with experience and training. It's not always possible, sometimes you inevitably get caught up in the emotion of a case and that emotion will build up as you approach verdict. I think in a sense the more detached you can be, often the better you can present the case.
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Steve Wright: I think you'll know the question that I've been working up to and I think you'll probably expecting it and you always have an answer for it.. Are you ready for it here we go..
The questions basically if you're defending somebody and you know that he or she did it, no matter what it is, then how can you possibly defend them?_____________________________________________________________________________________________
William Clegg:
If you know in the strict sense of that word that somebody has done it then your not allowed to defend them.. So if they were to say I have done this but I want to get off you have to say i cannot defend you. _____________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve Wright: and theres never been a case where that has happened?
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William Clegg:
There's never been a case where someone has said that to me and I have defended them, No... It would be a serious act of professional misconduct... What you of course do do, is defend people who the evidence tends to suggest very strongly is guilty. But... If they tell you that they didn't do it, how ever strong the evidence is, you have to defend them, and we operate a system called the cab-rank rule by which we are required to set the next brief we are offered, even if the case is unattractive, and the reason for that is to ensure that is that nobody is left without representation. _____________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve Wright: So you would have gone into court in your career, more or less knowing that someone did the crime but you have to defend them, because on their word, they told you that they didn't..
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William Clegg:
That is true, but I've also gone into court to defend people who everybody thought was guilty, who said they did not and it transpired ultimately they were proved to be innocent and they would never have been defended by anybody had we been allowed to pick and choose our cases.. _____________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve Wright: William revisits in this book many of the famous trials that he was involved in, they include 'The First Nazi War Crimes prosecutions in Britain, he was also involved in 'The Phone Hacking Trial'.. The man given life because of an ear print, perhaps you might want to talk us through that one... Interesting
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William Clegg: That was a young man who was convicted of Murder , the victim of burglary, her house was entered, via a window on the ground floor, when the Police Investigated they found on that window an
ear print, which was the only clue left behind by the burglar.____________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve Wright: I've never heard of an ear prints before,
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William Clegg:
To be honest nor had I.. It was a new an emerging science, and the Police found an expert in Holland, who was prepared to say , ear prints are unique to each person in the same way that a finger print is_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve Wright: Really..
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William Clegg:
And that expert said that that ear print matched the man in the dock. I was brought in to conduct his second appeal which was won and then just at the time of his retrial, advances in DNA evidence was able to establish , that the DNA profile found in the centre of the ear print was from somebody else.The Prosecution offered no evidence. and there is an example of an innocent man _____________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve Wright: Yes
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William Clegg:
Wrongly charged with Murder,who might have never have been defended had people read the papers and thought, it's obviously him the experts says so.... _____________________________________________________________________________________________
Steve Wright: Yer... Fascinating talking to you, thank you so much for coming in and talking to us about this book, the book is called 'Under The Wig' .. talking of which, you don't really think we should wear the wigs anymore..
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William Clegg: I'm very much in favour of the abolition of the wig , I think it's ridiculous to put a bit of dead horse hair on your head in order to administer justice..
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Steve Wright: It's kind of frightening don't you think,it's kind er,
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Someone: Formality
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Steve Wright: It gives a formality, exactly..
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William Clegg: I don't think you need to put a wig on your head to achieve formality, you should be able to acheive formality without that as every other country does.
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Steve Wright: Point well made,.. A Lawyers Stories of Murder, Guilt and Innocence by William Clegg QC is published tomorrow in hardback, thank you very much, William Clegg everybody... thank you
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Song Finished with: I Gotta Feeling Black Eyed Peas (Tonights gonna be a good night)
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I hope to revisit this and see how William Cleggs Defence of Dr Vincent Tabak plays out.. I believe I need to understand how the defence council works, to get a better understanding of how and why he defended Dr Vincent Tabak..
https://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/play/m0000kct
