The second edition of this text demonstrates the wider, socio-legal context of criminal law by explaining all parts of the criminal justice system.

'I'm a barrister, a job which requires the skills of a social worker, relationship counsellor, arm-twister, hostage negotiator, named driver, bus fare-provider, accountant, suicide watchman, coffee-supplier, surrogate parent and, on one memorable occasion, whatever the official term is for someone tasked with breaking the news to a prisoner that his girlfriend has been diagnosed with gonorrhoea.' Welcome to the world of the Secret Barrister. These...

The Secret Barrister returns to debunk the biggest legal lies of our time. Taking you from your own home to the halls of Westminster, this is the truth about justice in an age of fake law.

Could the courts really order the death of your innocent baby? Was there an illegal immigrant who couldn't be deported because he had a pet cat? Are unelected judges truly enemies of the people? Most of us think the law is only relevant to criminals, if we even think of it at all. But the law touches every area of our lives: from intimate family matters to the biggest issues in our society. Our unfamiliarity is dangerous because it makes us vulnerable...

Every day, like every criminal barrister in this country, Alex McBride stands up in court and, with nothing but his hard-won legal expertise, attempts to save people from criminal conviction and even a lifetime behind bars. In this memoir he takes us behind the scenes of Britain's criminal justice system.

From June 1924 to June 1926, America was transfixed by three contrasting courtroom trials. Each was described as a 'Trial of the Century' and featured Clarence Darrow, America's most charismatic but troubled defence lawyer, as he tried to overcome public outrage and his own private struggle to keep faith in the justice system.

Just how do you become a barrister? And why do only 1% of those who study law succeed in joining this mysteriously opaque profession? If it's such a great occupation, how come you work 100-hour weeks for less than minimum wage? And why might a practising barrister come to feel the need to reveal the lies, secrets, failures and crises at the heart of this world of wigs and gowns? This book charts an outsider's progress down the winding path towards...

The brutal slaying of Sharon Tate by the Manson family is still etched in the public consciousness more than 40 years later. What few people know, however, is the role her father played in finding and prosecuting his daughter's killers, and the choices her family members made to cope with the realities of this tragedy.

In this volume Peter Hitchens argues that the time has come to re-examine the criminal justice system root and branch - to cope with rising levels of violent crime, and to restore public faith in society's ability to defend itself.