Salopians take on Westminster School in Mock Trial Competition

Carys C (M, LVI) reflects on the two-day Mock Trial, supported by a criminal lawyer.

On Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, together with a group of lower sixth students, I participated in the Independent School’s Mock Trial Competition against Westminster School. 

Although due to COVID, we didn’t get to do the trial in person, as with anything, we persevered with technology, stepped up to the challenge and held our own. 

Having started the preparation a few months back, we attended regular meetings both in person and via Teams preparing speeches, rehearsing and developing our argument within our groups- defence, prosecution and jury.

We were judged by the jury of both school’s as well as by Esther Schutzer-Weissmann, a highly regarded criminal advocate, who gave us all feedback on the case. As part of the defence team, she particularly liked our delivery and the fact we worked together well in a team to provide similar evidence, whilst also giving us advice as to how to improve.

Finally, I would like to say a huge thank you to all the members of staff involved in helping us with this rewarding process, in particular Miss Corcoran. This experience has not only enabled us to develop our public speaking skills in an adversarial environment, practise thinking very quickly on our feet and work independently but also provided us with a taste of law and the judiciary, all of which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Carys C (M, LVI)