Just another statistic
Today I went to Court. There is nothing unusual about that as I
go pretty much every day. Today was a little bit different because I found
myself fighting back tears when I took instructions from a client. That's
right, a hardened criminal lawyer who has spent the last fifteen years
representing "guilty" people almost cried when meeting a client for
the first time.
I'll be honest. It hasn't been the best week for me. The night of
the General Election and the days that followed proved to be more depressing
than I could have ever imagined. They
were the days that we discovered that 37% of voters actually wanted the
Conservatives in power. I was depressed
because I struggle to comprehend how people can be so naive. I accept that everyone
has a choice but when the choice made is ill informed it just feels wrong. A
good example of this is the woman with whom I got drawn into a political
conversation on Twitter because she wants to "start taking satellite
dishes out of labour supporters houses" and she would "like to buy
more shoes and not fund people watching Jeremy Kyle and not working". I tried to explain using the limited
characters allowed that her perception was wrong and that there are genuinely
vulnerable people out there needing help who benefit from our taxes. I didn't
succeed. She scoffed at me and went on to discuss horse racing with another
like-minded Tory.
As a criminal lawyer I have spent the last two years campaigning.
It offends me when people say we only complain because we are fat cats who are
worried about our money. I can
personally set that straight pretty easily. Last year I was offered a job in a
commercial firm doing a different area of law.
The money in the long term would have been considerably more than I could
ever earn doing criminal law. I turned
it down. I turned it down despite the miserable and bleak future in legal aid.
I turned it down because my job isn't about money. My job is something I do because I care. I
care for the vulnerable people like the girl I met today. .
I'm going to call her “Lucy” , her real name was just as pretty
and feminine. I've never met Lucy
before. A colleague asked me if I would represent her as we had received a call
about her being in the Youth Court for breaching her Youth Rehabilitation
Order.
I arrived at the Youth Court and spoke to the Youth Offending
Officer. He gave me a couple of pages setting out the breaches but said little
else other than they needed full pre-sentence reports. I returned to the landing and called Lucy's
name. Lucy was sitting with an older man. She stood up and I invited her into
an interview room. She walked in painfully thin and pale. She had crimped her hair and had clumsily
applied make-up. She sat down and it was
clear that she was uncomfortable. She struggled to make eye contact. Her jaw was moving frantically and she was
clearly under the influence of drugs.
The first thing Lucy asked me was whether she would be remanded
into custody today. I told her it was
unlikely and she relaxed slightly. I introduced myself and explained that I
would read through the statement from the Youth Offending Team with her. It didn't make for good reading. She had been sentenced for a nasty robbery,
her co-accused an older man. . She had a
number of unpleasant previous convictions which I later discovered had all been
committed with a variety of older male co-accused. Looking at the young and
vulnerable girl before me I would struggle to imagine her ever being able to
instigate anything alone. She was struggling to cope with a conversation never
mind anything else.
The breach of this order had arisen because she simply didn't
turn up for appointments. I asked her why and she told me it was because the
appointments were given to her support workers who didn't give her enough
notice. Despite already knowing the
answer I asked her whether she was working or in education, she wasn't. Lucy explained that she spends a lot of time
going to another area about an hour away which I know is renowned for drugs and
other illicit behaviour. I asked Lucy
about her personal circumstances. She told me she was 17, then smiled and said
she was going to turn 18 next week. I doubt she will have the 18th birthday
celebrations that most are fortunate enough to enjoy. The papers revealed that Lucy was subject to a
s20 Children Act Order. This means that she is accommodated by the Local
Authority. Lucy went on to tell me that
she actually lived with her boyfriend, the older man outside who at twenty
years her senior has children older than Lucy.
She had relaxed a little now and I asked her whether she considered her
relationship to be "healthy". She looked at the floor and told me
that he had never hit her. I didn't believe her. It angered me that a vulnerable 17 year old
subject to a s20 order could be in this position.
I asked Lucy about her family and she told me. Her mum was a heroin addict and had always
been a heroin addict. She had not had a good upbringing. Her mum couldn't
cope. One of her brothers had died. She
had left school at thirteen because people were "doing things" to her
and she couldn't concentrate. She showed me her arms. They were cut to pieces.
Deep scars in every direction. She looked completely lost. She told me that her
youngest brother had been taken into care last October at the age of fourteen.
Fourteen years too late. She had never been given that chance. She told me she
couldn't get on with her mum because of what had happened to her growing
up. She tried to stay in contact with
her brother. She told me she was struggling to cope. She was struggling to get
through life. I honestly wanted to cry. I wanted to be able to do something. I
asked her what she thought might help her. She told me she wanted to be
"put into hospital". She said that things weren't right in her head
and she thought she had mental health problems.
It was clear that Lucy wanted to be in hospital because it would be the
only place that she would be safe. I asked her about drugs. She told me she smoked cannabis. She omitted
to mention the class A substance that she had clearly taken that morning. We
chatted a little longer and I advised her about the procedure and that the case
would be adjourned. I urged her to comply with the reports and to tell them
everything she had told me. I promised
her that I would come back and deal with her sentence.
I went into court with a heavy heart. I told one of the Youth Offending Team how
Lucy had made me feel. Her response, "I know last year we had to apply to the
Crown Court to try and keep a known sex offender away from her". I
actually felt sick. The thought that a young girl aged 17 had already suffered
years of abuse and was continuing to do so with little protection from anyone.
Protection that is likely to vanish once she turns eighteen in just under a
week.
The case was adjourned as predicted. I said goodbye to Lucy but
spent the rest of my day thinking about her.
I am deeply saddened by the fact that she has been completely let down.
She has been let down by her parents, social services, by her teachers, by the
staff she will have seen at the hospital to fix the scars on her arms. In fact
she has been let down by everyone who has ever come across her and turned a
blind eye. I am worried for her. I am worried because she is eighteen next week
which makes it less likely that she will get the help she needs. I know that she will never break the
cycle. I know that she doesn't have the
strength or the ability to remove herself from the toxic relationships that she
has with older, criminally sophisticated and sometimes sexually motivated
males. I know that she is never likely
to get a job. I know that she is likely
to have children and that history will repeat itself. I know this because I have seen it all before
many times.
What really upsets me about Lucy is the people who will label her
as another benefit scrounger, another statistic not worthy of their hard earned
taxes. The people who begrudge the £55
a week that she gets on the basis that she should "get a job". If Lucy
was in a position to "get a job" and live a normal life I'm pretty
sure she would. As it is life has never
given Lucy the chance. It concerns me that in these times of austerity the governments
plans to save money will disproportionately affect people like Lucy. The reducing budgets of the NHS, the police,
legal aid and the probation service will all hit people like Lucy hard and
let's face it Lucy has already been hit hard enough. It would appear that we
live in a society where people would rather be able to "buy more
shoes" than help someone like Lucy, a society that I am not comfortable
with and will do everything I can to try and change.
