Official! I am a terrorist & the Scholarship Interview

Yes I am a terrorist...

Yesterday at Mile End station I was stopped under the Terrorism Act 2000. As I was walking into the station to see if they had a photo booth so I could partake in some rather ugly photos of myself to give to the scholarship panel at Middle Temple the next day.

I admit I did look a bit suspicious, a 6ft man with glasses wearing a duffle coat with the hood up because it was raining outside.

The police officer approached me
"Excuse me Sir?"
"Yes" I replied.
"We are asking people to have a voluntary stop and search"
"Right ok.... do you not need a reasonable suspicion to stop and search me voluntarily?"
"No we are stopping you under the Terrorism Act"
"Ah, I see, and what section of the Terrorism Act?"
"Section 44.."
"and what does that say?"
"erm... well basically we can stop you...."


As I seemed to become a nuisance to the police officers (whom I believe were not actual police officers, for they had those funny yellow patches on their uniform.) I was pulled aside by another officer who explained that they wouldn't take my details only my description (one assumes so as not to appear to be targeting the young asian youths that populate Mile End)

After they checked my bag I was free to go, and I walked out of the tube station, which they might of thought of as weird, but I didn't even want to use the tube!

The Scholarship Interview
It went ok.. I arrived just in the nick of time, as I had to make an unexpected change at Bank because of the escalator works.. got there on time and found Middle Temple(which I had never visited before) went up to the main building and asked the very nice gentleman.
"Excuse me do you know where Porter's Lodge is?"
To which they replied "ermm hmmm....." looking directly at the sign that said "Porters Lodge".. I felt a bit stupid however I was glad I was in the right place and just in time too!

As I went to sit outside the interview room whilst the lovely clerk went to photograph my BVC offer letter I could hear the panel talking about how good the girl was who went before me! Nothing like extreme competition to make you more nervous.

I went in they introduced themselves, and lucky me there was a criminal practitioner in there!
They asked me general questions about my work at the LAC, why would I make a good barrister.. what area I was interested in, what the most important thing I had learnt on my mini-pupillage, any interesting legal stories, then about a DNA database.

If I were the panel I would have probably scored me half marks... I had a rather tricky situation of trying to use something creative that I learnt on my mini-pupillage the idea of a "poker face" That when the prosecution is cross examining defendant witnesses a defence barrister will make certain faces in shot of the jury to suggest that the questioning was harsh or uncalled for.

The panel instead said "so the opposite of a poker face?" and I humbly agreed with them.

I then talked about the G20 protest in which the man died, I was asked what charge I would bring against the officer, I said common assault, to which the male barrister said "not manslaughter then?" COMPLETELY forgetting that the man had actually died.

They asked which Law would i reform in the Criminal Justice System and I replied with RIPA. Which caught the attention of the criminal practitioner.

Perhaps a better moment was when I was asked how do I think junior practionners cope at the Bar..

I answered it from a Criminal perspective said with the usual miss match of saying it was very competitive, there aren't a lot of pupillage about(slightly irrelevant) and the impact of the Lord Carter reforms for those people doing legal aid and the fact that it will become a struggle until one is more established...


Though I was a bit weak on the DNA database question, what is a reason for not keeping the DNA evidence if I were completely exonerated of a crime... questions followed from that what is the difference between CCTV and DNA database to which I replied that CCTV doesn't work and DNA is quite specific, which repeatedly came out of my dry mouth as SPASIFIC.

There was no chance to mention my mooting! So after the panel had concluded I managed to slip in that I was a semi finalist in a national mooting competition. The male barrister replied with" oh good you can moot for Middle Temple next year!"

I'm not sure how it all went, the more I think about it the more I try to nit pick and decide that I was crap... I shall have to see when I get the results in a few weeks!

Until then more revision!