Written Advocacy Competition 2024 General Feedback
Judged by Kate Temple-Mabe of 7BR.
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All submissions represented good efforts, and it is clear that candidates gave this much thought and attention.
Structure
All candidates made some effort at structuring their submissions and organising them. Everyone addressed all of the relevant areas – facts, culpability, harm, sentencing guidelines, credit for plea, aggravating and mitigating features, type of sentence. Mainly the documents were easy to follow, although some students did this more effectively than others. Using headings in a logical order, numbering your paragraphs, and ensuring consistent spacing and formatting throughout will always help.
Nb. The correct way to address the court in this sort of note is in third person – you are not addressing the Defendant, but speaking about him to the Court. Refer to “Mr Edwards” or “the Defendant” – but do not say “my client”, at least not in written submissions, as typically barristers keep themselves out of their documents and do not say “I” or “me” etc. No one lost points for saying “my client”; it’s understandable why some did! It just is not typically done in written submissions.
Facts
Everyone set out the facts succinctly and provided all relevant detail. There is no need to be exhaustive in this section as the Court will be told about the facts at length by the Prosecution, but it’s always important to bring to light any features of the case that are particularly important from the Defence perspective. Most everyone spent a reasonable amount of time on this part of the note.
Culpability
This was the main point of the exercise: the key issue in this case was the culpability categorisation. The prosecution say this was a “significant role” offence, but there was enough in the facts to argue that this was better categorised as “lesser role”. Not everyone grasped this. Some people conceded the prosecution’s categorisation. The problem with this approach is that the sentencing guidelines for a Cat 3 / Significant Role offence dictate a starting point and sentencing range which will lead to a sentence that cannot be suspended (the court can only suspend sentences of 2 years or less). There is no chance the Court will pass a community order for this offence; the sentencing guidelines make it quite clear that the custody threshold is passed. If sentenced as a Cat 3 / Significant Role offender, the Defendant will face an immediate custodial sentence. Cases like this are very common (the facts of this one were based on a real case that I defended, and there are many like it). It is essential, if possible (and particularly for a young and first offender), to consider whether there might be features of lesser role that either bring the offence totally into the lesser role category, or somewhere on the border between lesser and significant. That is the only way you can potentially keep your client out of prison.
Harm
The Prosecution correctly categorised this as Category 3, because of the sale directly to users. It was not arguable to say, as some candidates did, that it should be Category 4 because of the quantity of drugs. All drug supply direct to users is Category 3 unless the volumes are so high that it becomes Category 1 or 2.
Credit for plea
The Defendant pleaded guilty at the first opportunity and is therefore entitled to 1/3 reduction in his sentence. Some candidates said this was discretionary – it is not, it is mandatory. At least one candidate said that he would get no credit because of the nature of the offence, which is not correct.
Aggravating and mitigating factors
All candidates understood what these were and dealt with them. Some candidates spent too long on the aggravating features – do not forget who you are representing! Whilst you cannot ignore the aggravating features and it is attractive to acknowledge and accept them, you don’t need to go in too hard on the subject.
Suspended sentence
The aim of the exercise was to get to a point where you argued for the Judge to pass a suspended sentence. A community order is not going to happen for this type of offence; inviting that sentence was not really arguable.
Citations
Some candidates cited case law; this was permitted but not necessary, and should not be overused. Case law should only be cited where there is a point specific to the facts of the case that will be persuasive to the Judge – and if it is cited, you’ll need to spend a bit of time explaining why you’ve cited it, rather than just popping a citation into a footnote. The winning submission did cite cases, but would have been the winning submission without citing them, simply because it was the best organised/structured and one of the only ones that did not make errors in any of the major points.
Well done everyone, and I hope that you enjoyed the chance to have a go at this type of advocacy.
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- Kate Temple-Mabe, 7BR