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Adam King

@adamhpking

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Criminal Barrister | Occasional writing

London, England
Joined March 2016
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 months
The Lucy Letby case is extraordinary for its evidential shape as much as its notoriety. I think it might well have been a miscarriage of justice. My piece in @unherd , taking in the Court of Appeal judgment and other recent developments.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
I’m proud to have done a bit of public service in prosecuting this trial. To assert ‘conscientious objection’ in cases like this is to encourage the identification of counsel with their clients - which is obviously bad for justice generally.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
Wigs in jury trials are a good thing, and shouldn’t be abolished. The contrast between an advocate's dress in court and outside of it powerfully conveys an important distinction in role and identity. All benefit from this clarity. And safety is not an irrelevant consideration.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
@SqueakinglyJen So do you think prisoners should be separated into male and female prisons at all? Or should we just put everyone in together and focus on what you say is the issue: combatting rape in prisons?
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
I wonder if it could be arranged as part of a lawful protest to have Lord Sumption’s recent lecture played on repeat on a giant screen outside Parliament. @simondolan @Francis_Hoar @AlistairHaimes
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
Huge respect to them both, and to 2 Bedford Row for tweeting it.
@2BedfordRow
2 Bedford Row
3 years
Jim Sturman and Shauna Ritchie acted for Wayne Couzens in the sentencing hearing for the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard
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@adamhpking
Adam King
6 years
Just heard from a colleague in the robing room that she had her shoes confiscated by security at Wood Green Crown Court - high heels too spiky apparently - and she had to do the hearing in bare feet.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
@dharmainpyjamas The judge did allow the defendants to give the jury their reasons, at length and in detail.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
6 years
Here's a good one. 5-day fraud trial - pensioners lost life savings. Offence in 2014. Retrial fixed for this Monday coming. Three witnesses flying in from Nigeria (for the second time). Court emails this pm, Friday: no judge to hear it, adjourned to November. #TheLawIsBroken
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
A proper understanding of Bayes' theorem not only helps us avoid terrible miscarriages of justice like the Sally Clarke case, I think it helps us make better speeches to juries. My explanation of the theorem, written with criminal lawyers in mind:
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
The modern criminal Bar does not operate like a 19th Century Guards’ regiment, and it benefits no one other than a handful of unusually status-obsessed barristers to suggest otherwise. My review of the Secret Barrister’s latest book for @unherd
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
The criminal Bar is striking for its continued independence, rather than for a few extra quid. It will be missed if it goes. My piece in @unherd today.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
Tradition is currently unfashionable, but just because something is old does not mean it is bad. Perhaps it is indeed time, as has recently been suggested, to consider exemptions for wig-incompatible hairstyles as well as for religious headwear. But wigs should stay.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
@BigBrotherWatch Absolutely disgusting. All power to your elbow.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
Meghan says she had *forgotten* that she'd authorised her comms team to speak to the writers of the biography. Very much looking forward to seeing how this all goes down with the Court of Appeal.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
Former Bailey judge Charles Wide QC has read the transcripts of the Colston trial and written a detailed analysis - mainly criticism - of the way the trial was handled. Essential reading for any lawyer commenting on the case. (h/t @TonyDowson5 )
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
Very good point from @thebarcouncil chair Nick Vineall KC
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
All these public instructions to BE KIND must surely mean we’ll soon become a really kind society. Exciting.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 month
Excellent short piece on the BSB's proposals to *force* barristers to *actively promote* a poorly defined and ever-shifting political agenda. It would benefit no one, least of all the public. It must be stopped.
@Barristerblog
Matthew Scott
1 month
I want nothing to do with @barstandards 's political activism.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
@johnmchanning @freddiesayers Yes, and to make people subtly complicit in the insanity. Little by little, more and more obvious inconsistency goes unremarked on. It quickly becomes too late to say “hang on a minute”.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
@JonnyTate @jadenozzz And those who can't plausibly claim to have been neutral, or anti-lockdown, will protest that they were lied to by experts and politicians. No one will admit that their judgement was affected by fear - of the virus, or of social opprobrium.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
@RupertDarwall @ianbirrell The biggest scandal of our age. Absolutely unreal. A literal global conspiracy of lying scientists. Still unfashionable enough to talk about that they remain safe for now, though.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
@TomChivers Even if child vaccination for covid reduces the number of child deaths, it doesn't follow that parents ought to have their child vaccinated. The regret would arguably be worse if death was caused by a positive act to mitigate a miniscule risk.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
This is hilarious. The Worst Cross-Examination In The World, in under 60 seconds. Could be used as a Bar School teaching aid.
@TonyDowson5
Tony Dowson
3 years
I'm not a fan of Insulate Britain in the slightest, but Graham here certainly doesn't come across well from this exchange. Of course concrete is worse for the environment than wood.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
Four years in prison, awaiting trial. Medieval and embarrassing. People can spend less time inside after being convicted of rape. The rule about Custody Time Limits not applying once a trial starts, even if - as here - it’s aborted, should be changed.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
Terror dogs are everywhere in London. They should be banned, with extreme penalties for owning them.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
@edwest Five-and-a-half times the salary of an infantry soldier. But they're so busy trying not to get blown to bits in an inexpensive foreign country that they don't have time to spend any of it, so swings and roundabouts really.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
@HannahQuirk1 @TonyDowson5 The example conflates "threatening" and "misgendering". Very poor. Cynics will find it hard to believe the ambiguity is not deliberate.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
7 years
My blog post on yesterday's Supreme Court judgment about the meaning of cheating and dishonesty: #PhilIvey
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
@moveincircles “Friendly reminder”. Broken legs next time.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
Good sign, bad sign. Becoming obsessed with public notices. Bad ones interrupt thought, irritate, uglify, and fail in their purpose. The red one here is good. Short, clear, and aesthetically decent. The green one is fairly awful.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
The only hope for free speech in Universities is to make it extremely hard to dismiss academics or students for speech transgressions, which the government’s new Bill won’t do. My piece for @unherd
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
@Lobby_Hodder @thhamilton But it wouldn’t solve the problem the authors of these signs have, which is their unfulfilled desire to force strangers to listen to their moralising.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 months
@rubicon3sailing @unherd I’d say there’s a realistic chance of a CCRC referral within three years. Slightly pulling that number out of thin air, but seeing as you asked, if I had to bet…
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
Steve Coogan this morning on playing Jimmy Saville, goes full Partridge. Too good.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
9 months
@LevinsLaw @AllianceLGB @SexMattersOrg The JCIO gives the following as one of 8 examples of judicial misconduct: "Misusing social media, for example posting offensive content, or content which could damage public confidence in judicial impartiality such as remarks about government policy"
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
Tony undersells this. It’s a very careful and thorough analysis of whether the Colston judge was right in law to direct the jury as he did on (a) the novel proportionality defence, and (b) the Prevention of Crime defence. Conclusion is: he was wrong on both.
@TonyDowson5
Tony Dowson
3 years
I've written an article on why an Attorney General's Reference regarding the Colston Trial may be merited, fleshing out some of the comments I've already made on this case on Twitter.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
My piece in today’s @Unherd on why the Safetyism ratchet keeps turning.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
@DXW_KC @Metienne12 How utterly disgusting.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
If your house is burgled, and the culprit is caught, this Government won’t pay for a trial.
@MKLawSolicitors
MK Law Solicitors
2 years
MK Law have today refused to represent an individual charged with Burglary at Wood Green Crown Court in line with the majority verdict of the members of the LCCSA to not undertake poorly remunerated work. #burglaryboycotted @lccsa
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
We have been slow-boiled in Safetyism, by the interaction of social media and the availability heuristic. My piece today in @unherd
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
Powlesland says he accepts I’m entitled to decline to answer his questions. But he also says he’s going to invent an answer and put that about, unless I respond to correct him.
@paulpowlesland
Paul Powlesland
1 year
@adamhpking @ToBeThatGuy_ @thebarcouncil Ok, going forward I’ll be saying that despite saying you believe in cab rank, you actually act overwhelmingly to prosecute climate protesters & clearly do so because you disagree politically with those protesters. Happy to change this if you believe it is wrong.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
6 years
Satisfyingly punchy stuff from @TheCriminalBar this morning.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
@SqueakinglyJen But why would more staff be needed if men were added to women’s prisons? Isn’t the main reason: without more staff, lots of the women would be raped by the men?
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
@edwest “Teachers…withdrew their backing after the other sixth formers accused the girl of transphobia.”
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
@TonyDowson5 Slightly surprising to read that “the police could not confirm” whether or not the pavement was a shared pedestrian and cyclist path
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
@BristOliver “There is an England of my mind” is just so unbelievably pompous
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@adamhpking
Adam King
5 months
Looking up at the digital message board on my train, waiting to check the destination. “…ANY ABUSIVE BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS OUR STAFF…” Yeah yeah. Is there really any benefit to creating a hostile environment, in almost every public space? Thugs don’t obey these notices.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
@AdamWagner1 I'm sorry Adam, but Full Fact have badly misquoted him: "He then wrongly claimed that only hundreds of people have died of Covid without any other pre-existing condition". Simply not what he said: at 1.19.43 Please listen to it and confirm. Only 17s long
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
Reading @wstorr excellent “The Status Game”. Occurs to me the reason many of my coolest friends don’t use social media, and many of the least cool do, is because the former are winning IRL and are content to focus their attentions there.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
6 months
@Madz_Grant Worst ever. Worse even than this horror on the trains.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
Alex Deane @ajcdeane would have been a proper star at the Bar if he’d stayed. Here he is explaining the reason for the walk-out, more concisely and clearly than most others. He is very much of the Right. The strike should not be turned into a partisan political issue.
@addicted2newz
Lee Harris
2 years
. @ajcdeane pointing out that junior barristers doing legal aid work often earn well below the minimum wage and there have been problems in the profession for years.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
9 months
@RuthfulThe 6 months! 4 months! How about…ten years? @edwest
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
@Barristerblog @CPSUK More than the CPS’s daily rate for prosecuting a rape trial
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
Can't get enough of defunct provincial bike schemes. This one isn't even that old - only started in 2015 - but it has all the bleak magic of an abandoned Olympic Village. That the QR code takes you to a domain-squatting money-lender is the chef's kiss.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
Brilliant of Rozenberg and Rose. Note in particular the final paragraph on relevant differences with Perry in Hong Kong. I predict much more of this in this jurisdiction in the coming years - mobs attacking counsel for the clients they represent. Must never give in.
@JoshuaRozenberg
Joshua Rozenberg
4 years
Leading barrister refuses to be intimidated. Dinah Rose QC says she won't pull out of hearing in London next month.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
10 months
@TonyDowson5 He is just so hilariously incapable of actually saying sorry, in a straightforward, unalloyed way. I genuinely wonder whether he has ever done it in the course of his entire life.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
6 years
"What happened next is unbelievable..." For once, that clickbait line is very nearly justified. Wow. And yes, two years does feel a little low.
@BBCOne
BBC One
6 years
This man reported his 5-year-old-son missing after his ex-partner stopped him seeing him. What happened next is unbelievable… #ReportedMissing
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
@freddiesayers @unherd “…should not have any place in a liberal, tolerant society”, she ends with. A liberal tolerant society being something that, given her Communist political beliefs, she would love to see obliterated.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
I’ve dealt with plenty of stabbings in court, but gangs of children breaking into A&E to finish their victims off is news to me. Real decline and fall stuff. Can @metpoliceuk really not prevent it?
@edwest
Ed West
3 years
London’s gang fights are spilling over into hospitals our anonymous doctor today on the unreported stabbings inside the wards
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@adamhpking
Adam King
7 months
@SVPhillimore I thought there was a resignation?
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
Great piece on the metastasising authoritarian Safetyism that stands to ruin our lives long after the Covid threat has gone.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
What if juries don’t believe rape myths? Should the standard judicial directions change? My piece for @unherd on recent research by Prof. Thomas at @UCLLaws
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 months
This tweet, and the short thread it’s part of. Quite.
@Barristerblog
Matthew Scott
3 months
Of course I have no idea whether LL is guilty or not, but the suggestion that those worried about the safety of her convictions are troubled because she is a harmless looking white girl is, with great respect to Andrew, very unfair.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
The whole Post Office…thing (“scandal” seems far too light a word for it) is like one of those never-ending tasteless horror film franchises. Unbelievable.
@CastletonLee
Lee Castleton
2 years
Postmaster victim of IT scandal now forced to hand back compensation via @MailOnline
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
@g__ferris @AtkinsQC Or, you could have scrolled down to the middle of the board and screenshotted a fairer, more representative, sample of his chambers instead.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
This is playground stuff and I won’t be engaging with him any further. I’ll stop short of blocking for now.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
This is great. “Ridiculously, they still carry on like they are hated by an establishment full of port-soaked aristocrats and Thatcherites who want Nelson Mandela to stay in prison. Wrong [...] they are the establishment and have been for decades.”
@Will___lloyd
Will Lloyd
4 years
I wrote about centrist dads, liberal-conservative mums, and lazy books, for @unherd
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
This was an obviously unpersuasive argument - and the jury convicted. Let’s be glad justice was done (in the verdict at least..) and not try to pile-on to the unfortunate barrister, who, we can safely assume, did not have much to work with.
@PaulEmbery
Paul Embery
2 years
His defence barrister, Edward Targowski KC, told the court: "If you accept...that she is transitioning, that she is aiming to continue on that path to becoming female gender, that goes a long way to acquitting her of these charges." Jesus wept!
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
@AdamWagner1 She misquoted him horribly, and he corrected her. That is not inhumane. Nor are his arguments more generally: as you yourself seem to concede by saying you can “kind of see his point”.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
Judgment in the sentencing appeal of R v Trowland & Decker, in which I appeared for the Crown, led by Tom Little KC, just handed down. Appeals dismissed.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
This is seriously depressing and sinister. I’ve done pro bono work for the Free Speech Union - happily licensed by the Bar Pro Bono Unit, “Advocate” as it’s now called. You don’t have to like, or even not hate, Toby Young to be worried by this development.
@toadmeister
Toby Young
2 years
PayPal has closed the accounts of the Daily Sceptic and the Free Speech Union, a new low in Big Tech’s war on free speech. Not only can you not express certain views, you can’t defend people’s right to express them e
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@adamhpking
Adam King
8 months
Return train ticket from London to Derby this morning, standard class: £224. Completely sane country.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
If you read one thing from @unherd this year...
@freddiesayers
Freddie Sayers
4 years
As the inquisition of the “lockdown sceptics” gathers pace, my plea at @UnHerd : Don’t let Scepticism become a dirty word
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
@AdamWagner1 People who are anti-lockdown take a different view of the best balance between the competing harms of loss of freedom and covid danger. There's nothing "muscular" or even (depending on your definition) anything particularly "libertarian" about it.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
@paulpowlesland @thebarcouncil Aren’t you an elected member of the Bar Council, Paul? Perhaps you should take this beef up with your fellow members at the next meeting, rather than firing aggressive loaded questions on Twitter at colleagues who approve of your Chair’s statement on the matter.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
Satisfyingly punchy piece on the Truman Brewery demolition scandal. So why did @Kevin_J_Brady override a motion to postpone the decision until more committee members were present?
@TheCriticMag
The Critic
3 years
Despite 7000 objections, two men alone decided to approve plans to part-demolish the Old Truman Brewery and build a late-1990s-glass-box-and-Starbucks-warehouse style, five storey shopping mall and corporate office block — @BriceStratford
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@adamhpking
Adam King
8 months
@Baddiel He's got a point though - unlike you, unfairly sniping about his wife's ancestry.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
@SBarrettBar @Kirsty_Brimelow @BarristerSecret @spectator @FraserNelson The lawyers you quote as describing the verdict as "absurd" and "perverse" may be "eminent" but they do not practice in crime. Not that that precludes them from commenting of course, but their expertise on this is limited.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
7 months
@OliverConway I was once lucky enough to sit next to Lord Sumption over dinner and he was an extremely interesting, amusing and totally unpompous conversationalist.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
@surplustakes It's like a parody of bad arguments crammed together for educational purposes.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
Directions on proportionality are *very* wide. They’re not expressed to attach specifically to any statutory defence. I think >50% chance Court of Appeal would say the directions are too broad and not what Ziegler requires.
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@Barristerblog
Matthew Scott
3 years
Colston summing up: those legal directions in full
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@adamhpking
Adam King
4 years
My piece for @unherd on this week's changes to the lockdown regulations
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
@PaulNuki @freddiesayers Two competing theories of cause and effect. One zooms out, another zooms in. “Poo”, “balls” and now “idiotic”. Childishly unpersuasive.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
Waiting to hear from the Earl Marshall when is the appropriate time to change my name to Adam Queen
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 years
@oliverburkeman @TobySaul The rule is not always strictly applied. For one thing, legal aid fees are no longer deemed to be proper remuneration - so you can, depending on circs, refuse a case on that ground. Sturman, as a star silk, has performed a valuable public service here and deserves much respect.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
1 year
@BullyWatchUK @RSPCA_official I particularly like the suggestion that breed is unconnected to "bite style". So jaw muscle mass is unconnected to "bite style" is it eh?
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@adamhpking
Adam King
3 months
Amusing start to a Denning judgment I just came across. "The coast of Cornwall is beautiful. Much of the inland is ugly. It is despoiled by china clay workings. Not far from them there is open farmland with small villages dotted around. Pleasant enough but not outstanding."
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@adamhpking
Adam King
8 months
@Baddiel A quick google shows that he was a children's writer long before he was married. As if it matters.
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
I suppose it could be acceptable to publicly denounce a fellow member of the profession as "a disgrace to the Bar" for whatever it is @alexchalkchelt has recently said or done, but to do so from behind a shield of anonymity is very poor.
@BarristerSecret
The Secret Barrister
2 years
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@adamhpking
Adam King
2 years
Jonathan Sumption being bang right again.
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