Interview with Max Hill, senior barrister for the prosecution

12 March 2017

With your background in both prosecution and defence, were you content to prosecute in this case?

I would have been happy on either side. Perhaps they naturally came to me to prosecute because they wanted methodical, no-drama, precise, fair presentation of the case, and those are aspects I hope I’m known for, but I would have been equally happy to defend. I think it was a very balanced case.

How much persuasion did it take for you to get involved?

I went through a long process of reassurance as to the thoroughness of the research, the reality they were going to introduce, the lack of dramatic licence. I was encouraged by the involvement of legal advisors, particularly David Etherington QC, who is my predecessor as head of chambers, the presence of Judge Barker, the use of court professionals as usher and clerk, and the fact that professionals in all the scientific disciplines were going to be used, rather than actors, so there was a forensic home office scientist and so on. All of that encouraged me that this was going to be as close to the reality of a court process as could be. It’s not at all my intention to move into entertainment!

Did the reality bear that out?

Yes, I think it did. I was enormously impressed with the process the programme-makers had gone through in terms of everything physical – the court building, the camera coverage, and so on. We never did a second take, which was important. I was very impressed by the way in which the actors had been rehearsed beyond their witness statements, and deep into their personal backstories so I could treat them as I would ordinary witnesses.

How would you describe Michelle Nelson as a colleague?

Irreplaceable! She’s enormously hardworking, dependable and bright, and those are the three qualities you want. She has huge experience in her own right, particularly in homicide cases. The pressure of a trial – and this had real pressure – means that you don’t work anything like 9 to 5. These things aren’t easy. You need someone able to keep up and do parts of the work alongside someone like me who spends a lot of time on their feet. So you need someone you trust implicitly.

People might be surprised to hear you say this was a case with real pressure, given that it’s a fictional case. To what extent is your professional reputation on the line here?

It is on the line, in the sense that we are correcting a lot of the myths legal drama has created about the way in which we go about our job. The extent to which our personal beliefs impinge on the way in which we conduct a case, the way we interact with witnesses, police officers, defendants… We want to show how it really is. Put that together with the natural competitive streak all advocates have – if we were going to take this on at all, we’d all do it to the best of our abilities – and an extremely able, experienced team on the other side, and that creates the sort of pressure you get in the closed environment of a courtroom.

How were John Ryder and Lucy Organ as opponents?

They were easy opponents. I don’t mean they were pushovers, but we didn’t have fireworks between us. It’s pretty unusual for barristers to fall out. We got on well, spent some time together outside court, it didn’t compromise the nature of the case, and it was a very pleasant experience. I think what people will see something that’s pretty typical of a case involving lawyers of that seniority.

What did you make of Simon Davis?

A complex character. Everyone will have found themselves wondering about him as the trial went on. His life and lifestyle, with the exception of the arguments with the women in his life, wouldn’t indicate he’d be a candidate for the crime, but just because you’re a maths professor, it doesn’t mean you can’t commit murder. Sometimes, when under pressure, “normal” people do very strange things. There were some indications from the evidence and the way he came across that he was a needy person, deeply upset by displacement from his family and desperate to get back to them, which would be entirely natural. You have to balance that with, rather than neediness, a controlling nature. Those were the two sides to him and you had to work out which side prevailed on the day in question.

Is there a case to be made for televising trials?

No, I’m against televising criminal trials wholesale. There is a case for doing what we do now: admitting cameras at particular points in particular cases. The sentencing remarks of an experienced judge after a notorious trial can help if they’re televised, because they can dispel a lot of the myths around the case. But there is never any substitute for being there in person, all the time. That’s what’s drummed into juries all the time: you can only decide on this case when you’ve heard all the evidence. If you’re going to televise a trial from start to finish, then we can have a conversation about that. Anything less than that, I’m against.

Is the criminal justice system in good nick?

The reputation of the UK’s criminal justice system around the world is very high, and rightly so. The way we do it is held up throughout the Commonwealth and other jurisdictions where they don’t use an adversarial system. They look to us to set the standard. However, underfunding threatens the existence of what we have and what we need to maintain.

What do you hope The Trial will achieve?

I hope this will encourage the next generation to come to the bar. I’m not suggesting we were perfect, but if we’ve dispelled a lot of myths and impressed upon people that this is serious, that we’re hard-working, that we don’t pull stunts and do what we do for good reason, then this will have been a success.