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If an Englishman’s home is his castle, these days it may seem he no longer has the right to defend it. Consider the infamous case of Tony Martin, a farmer who was convicted of murder in 2000, for shooting dead an intruder who broke into his farmhouse in the middle of the night. Martin was described in the popular press as a hero and a tragic example of how the law turns innocent homeowners into criminals. But what actually happened? Miller won, the Government conceded, a vote was had in Parliament which went overwhelmingly in favour of Brexit, the courts did not collapse and democracy was not destroyed. A couple of newspapers ran headlines that lawyers didn’t like. It was not the end of civilisation as we know it and nor should the judiciary be, uniquely, exempt from criticism. But how many of these angry headlines are true? Many are simply an example of fake law. This disturbing new phenomenon, akin to fake news, involves the media and politicians seeking to distort the truth about our legal system and how it impacts our freedoms. Seriously, please take time out to read/listen to this book. You will understand modern Britain more thoroughly and be able to cut through the chaff of day to day news stories to find what really happened.The general trend in each chapter is to point out what is lazily accepted about an area of law and then to explain, with reference to a few notable cases, how that perception is wrong and why. Blame is largely placed at the feet of politicians or in the hands of editors. The overall thesis is this: the public is being conned out of its rights and – like turkeys voting for Christmas – not only accepts, but applauds that fact. Resultantly, the reader grows increasingly disheartened about all the misinformation that's doing the rounds! So, he wasn’t convicted because the law is biased against homeowners, but because he failed to meet either of the vital criteria for self-defense. Our unfamiliarity is dangerous because it makes us vulnerable to media spin, political lies and the kind of misinformation that frequently comes from other loud-mouthed amateurs and those with vested interests. This 'fake law' allows the powerful and the ignorant to corrupt justice without our knowledge - worse, we risk letting them make us complicit. I don't believe all the #Metoo stories. For example, sex with Weinstein was in exchange for fame, for becoming a film star. Some of them were really forced and some of them, going up to his bedroom suite in a hotel for what is essentially a job interview and knowing his reputation, knew exactly what might happen. Some of them did te famous and stayed quiet for a long time. Some of them didn't and got compensation and stayed quiet. Some of them were molested and raped without any prior knowledge that the man might do such things to them.

Johnson doesn’t care about victims of sexual violence. Or victims of any crime. Or people accused of crime. Or witnesses. Or the public whose safety depends on functioning criminal justice. His only interest is getting cheap headlines. The Criminal appeal reports [being] stuffed with miscarriages of justice where innocent men and women lost years of their lives because the state wrongly believed they were guilty’. This Secret Barrister sequel offers a gripping, informative and sometimes alarming survey of how the media, government and various interest groups have promoted misleading legal narratives in recent years. From legal aid to employment tribunals, from shooting burglars to deporting immigrants, the author reveals the important unreported detail behind news headlines and political catchphrases.After all, it would be a very lonely place on our doorsteps every Thursday evening if we were all invited out to clap for the lawyers… Unless of course you are one of those who has suffered or lost loved ones as a result of negligence or incompetence, or wanted to hold the government to account, or might one day in the future. I think it is dangerous for a government minister to say this is an acceptable headline and this isn’t an acceptable headline because [while] I am a huge believer in the independence of the judiciary, I am also a very strong believer in the free press”. It is almost impossible to engage a criminal lawyer in conversation without being subjected to a tirade about how awful everything is. The legal profession feels it is not only unappreciated but required to preside over a system that is falling apart at the seams. These stories are far from unusual. They occur with a tragic frequency that gives the lie to the narrative fashioned about legal aid in the headlines. For that – a lie – is what it is. You – we – have been lied to for years. And we are still being lied to today. We are lied to about who and what legal aid is for, why we have it and how much it costs. And the consequences of the lies, and what they permit those in power to get away with, threaten to undermine the entire basis of our justice system”. Second, your response must be proportionate to the threat you face. For example, if someone slaps you and your response is to shoot them, then you’d struggle to convince a jury that you acted reasonably.

By regular reference to ‘The Court of Public Opinion’, a place where politicians and media go when they don’t like Courts of Law, we see how easy it is to create a lynch mob approach to justice and a climate where politicians can thrive when openly boasting about breaking the law. Despite the misgivings about deepfake legislation being potentially misused to hamper freedom of speech, there seems to be a genuine need to be able to identify and label deep learning-generated content as such. This would ensure that consumers of such content are made aware that the content has been artificially created and not fooled into believing it is real. This would allow for the safe use of deepfakes in comedy and satire, for instance, while hopefully avoiding fraud, rumor-mongering, and disinformation. There are a number of misleading opinions which influences the reader towards gaining a bias view on the value of practicing ‘law by public consent’, (e.g.) such as those who wanted to kill the two 10 year old boys when they were found guilty of killing 2 year old James Berger in 1993. Public behaviour was vying for blood. which in part led to two 10 years children being judged in an adult court and not a juvenile court. Blake Morrison wrote in the Independent that James Bulger's murderers must get justice from an adult world. The anger of the adult world towards two 10 year old children reached a frenzied pitch which almost led to a public lynching.Is the bible of this woke culture Animal Farm? ** "In 2019, Harvard Law School professor Ronald S. Sullivan Jr, a respected defence lawyer, found himself the subject of angry calls to resign from his faculty after agreeing to defend alleged sex offender Harvey Weinstein. His attempts to explain the importance of representing ‘unpopular defendants’ were drowned out by the rage of his students, whose petitions, marches and vandalism – Whose side are you on? was spray-painted on the faculty building – succeeded in evoking a shameful response from the university. Rather than reminding these bright young minds of the essential function of criminal defence, Harvard administrators promised a ‘climate review’ to investigate Professor Sullivan’s conduct. In May 2019, Harvard announced that his tenure would not be renewed." This is definitely one of my favourite books of 2021 so far. Regardless of whether you are in the legal field of not, this book by the Secret Barrister is worth a read! SB: Philip Davies is a man who, on a BBC documentary, bounced up and down while sitting on an electric chair, enthusing about how that’s exactly the sort of justice we need in England and Wales, so I think it’s fair to say that he is probably part of a constituency that I’m not going to be able to persuade. And ultimately, nice as I think it would be if lots of people agreed with me, that’s not really the primary aim of the book. I’m happy for people to argue against human rights, say, or against increasing legal aid, as long as when they do so they are equipped with – and deploy – actual facts. I naturally happen to believe that if they are equipped with the facts that they will be forced to reconsider their position, but even if they don’t – as long as they aren’t parroting myths and are able to appreciate the counter-arguments, I’ll be content. Ish.