One of the finest recent traditions at the Bar is the presentation of the “Lethbridge gloves”, which are given to one of the new women criminal silks before the annual Queen’s Counsel ceremony, which takes place on Monday at Westminster Hall in London.
The gloves are presented in honour of Nemone Lethbridge, who was forced to leave the Bar in 1961 when her marriage to Jimmy O’Connor, who had been convicted of murder, became public. Lethbridge, who celebrated her 90th birthday this month, presented the gloves to Sarah Vine, of Doughty Street Chambers, at the gathering in Middle Temple. Some 45 of the 101 new silks are women. As one said: “This is a new old boy’s network”.
Sharing their stories, it was revealed that one of this year’s new women QCs was a child actress who starred in the Welsh language television soap opera, Pobol y Cwm, or People of the Valley. Two others had been on opposite sides in a murder trial.
Making access easier
There are about 14.1 million disabled people in the UK — one in 50 people is a wheelchair user and one in ten is mobility impaired. Yet most courts, law firms and barristers’ chambers are inaccessible — meaning that potential clients, members and users cannot get through the door. Figures from HM Courts and Tribunal Service reveal that only 15 per cent of courts in England and 29 per cent of courts in Wales are fully wheelchair accessible.
But one chambers, 7BR, has just unveiled accessible hydraulic steps which have been installed at its 18th-century office building in Bedford Row, central London. The set benefited from the advice of AccessAble, a website set up by a barrister, Gregory Burke, to provide information about wheelchair-accessible venues and disabled facilities.
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A life’s work well done
Judge Wendy Joseph, the third woman to sit full-time at the Central Criminal Court in London, retired last week on her 70th birthday. She became a full-time judge from 2007, and when she moved from Snaresbrook Crown Court to the Old Bailey in 2012, she was the only woman judge sitting.
Giving her valedictory speech last week, Joseph recalled Peter Beaumont, a former recorder of London, telling her sternly that “you must fit in”. On her first day Joseph was welcomed by a senior barrister who “just couldn’t help calling me My Lord and Your Lordship”. She said: “I looked long and steadily down my monkey-jacket into my cleavage. That stopped him.”
Joseph has a book out in June, Unlawful Killings: Life, Love and Murder: Trials at the Old Bailey. She says it is “not my memoirs” but stories about what it is like to be a judge, juror, barrister, defendant and witness.
