YR9 Young Magistrates Mock Trial Competition

On the 28th February; Mahiruddin Ahmed, Harry Boorman, Joshua Brennan, Cameron Cini, Eli Benoit, Kit To, Dillon Patel and Max Thomas were chosen to represent the school in the young magistrates mock trial competition. Most of us were nervous, we only had a few days to practice. There was also a girls' school team.

Once we had got there, we were searched for dangerous materials and were asked to wait in the lobby for the competition to start. Originally, there were supposed to be a total of eight schools competing but we discovered that one school had dropped out of the competition and this delayed the start of the competition.

After a long and tedious wait, our first trial started. We were on the side of the prosecution against a school from essex. Mahir and Kit were prosecution lawyers with Josh and Eli as their witnesses. Dillon did an excellent job as legal adviser. Cameron, Harry and Max were magistrates. Both teams put up a good fight, however the magistrates came to a "not-guilty" verdict. We may have lost the battle but the war goes on...

After the first trial had ended, we were once again in the lobby feeling very good thinking that we did a better job than our competition. We had time to relax at this point when Harry and Eli were constantly practicing for the next part of the trial.

The second round was up. This time we were against a school from Westminster. When we entered our nervous feeling faded. This time; Harry and Eli were defence lawyers with Josh as the defendant and Max as the defence witness. Dillon was, this time, an usher. Mahir, Kit and Cameron were magistrates.

The other team looked like primary school students but, shockingly, they weren't! Our opponents seemed to make many mistakes giving away vital information that could have lost them the case. However, much to our surprise, we lost the case! Again! Luckily, we were being marked on our acting skills and how much information we can unveil and not whether we can win or lose the case.

After the case, the judges said that we did a really good job and Dillon "the usher" was offered a job!

We were once again in the lobby. This time there was one difference. We weren't waiting for another round, we were waiting for the results. Once we were told to enter the court where the judges were about to give us the results and settled down, the lawyers started telling us about how we can get into law. There was a question and answer session and then the moment of truth...

We lost! Sadly, St Paul's Way won. We were gutted! The judges only told us who won so we don't know what place we came in at. The girls were also very upset by this.

We went back to the lobby, had pictures taken and were dismissed. We may have lost, but hopefully we did well. This whole competition was a great experience and it could, possibly inspire some, if not all, of the contestants to pursue a career in law.

This whole competition was great and could not be possible without the help of:
Ms Ashe
Ms Neburagho
Ms Dan

ALSO: Don't forget to look at the pictures!