Interview with Michelle Nelson, junior barrister for the prosecution

13 March 2017

What is the fundamental job of the prosecution team?

It’s not about whether or not we secure a conviction, that’s a matter for the jury. It’s about presenting the evidence you have that could make a jury sure someone had committed the offence with which they’re charged. It’s about seeing justice is done.

Was the pressure of this case unusual, in that it creates a unique historical record of your work?

I rather wish you hadn’t reminded me… What we do is about real people and real lives. There’s always an element of production about something like this, and I’m slightly uneasy that it’ll be there for all time, but any trial you do will be there for all time in the minds of those who were there. Perhaps not in the numbers that will watch Channel 4, however.

So you’re torn between wanting a huge audience and no audience at all?

That’s very true!

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

I would have required greater convincing than I did, but Max [Hill] spoke to me about it so that made it a pretty clear shoo-in for me. The big concern was whether it was a performance piece, because that’s not what we do. I’d seen [director Nick Holt’s documentary] The Murder Trial and that was reassuring. In the event we ran the trial as we would any trial.

What was the division of labour between you and Max?

We didn’t do it in a very formal way on this occasion. I did a lot of the pre-trial work, then we just figured out how we’d deal with witnesses. It was collaborative, so there was a lot of brainstorming, talking to the expert witnesses and working out our route through this.

How would you describe Max as a colleague?

Very thorough, very collaborative. He has very clear views on what does and doesn’t matter and he’s a serious person by nature. I’ve worked with him well before.

How has television portrayed murder trials in the past?

Some of it has been rather fanciful, but there are times when presentations have been close. Seeing the jury deliberations will be interesting, because you never know how a decision has been reached or how something can influence somebody. We always rather assume that the jury follows the judge’s directions, that they listen to and understand the evidence. Whether that’s actually how decisions are made remains to be seen.

Is there a case to be made for televising trials?

I’m not a supporter of televising trials. The danger is what we saw with the trial of Oscar Pistorius, that almost all the focus is on the defendant and his reactions. I’m not sure trials are particularly interesting as a rule. Televising them makes an assumption the public wants to watch a jury trial from beginning to end, and I don’t think they do.

Is the criminal justice system in good nick?

I think it continues to function well. I don’t say it’s not under pressure, but that pressure is felt across most public institutions. I think it continues to deliver justice and the people within it work incredibly hard to ensure that is the case.