INTERVIEWED BY: KATERINA DIMNIK
FROM COURTROOM TO FARMYARD, THE INSIDE SCOOP ON CHARLIE MYATT Charlie Myatt (FH 81-86) was a criminal barrister for 25 years and spent the last five years of his legal career prosecuting serious child sexual abuse cases. In 2018 Charlie jumped ship to join his older brothers Paul (FH 70-75) and Rod (FH 72-77), in their high-end ice cream business Criterion Ices, in Suffolk. The barrister-turned-luxury food marketeer shares his experiences of the enjoyment he gets from working in a family business, despite this year’s challenges. What inspired you to become a criminal barrister? At 16 years old I remember being encouraged to go to a careers talk by a criminal barrister in Old Big School at Tonbridge. I thought it was a career that would suit me as I liked the idea of being self-employed, dealing with interesting cases and thinking on my feet. How did you come to focus on such a tough aspect of the law – child sexual abuse? When you start out, you take on whatever’s given to you. It was really by accident rather than design that I became involved in serious child sex abuse cases – mainly prosecuting. For the last five years of my legal career it became about 80 per cent of my workload. I found it greatly rewarding – particularly when representing people who have been victims for many years. It takes a huge amount of courage for victims to come forward, sometimes 20-30 years later. I wanted to help ensure their voices were heard and believed. Were there times you thought a judge or jury got a decision wrong? Yes, there were certainly times, but
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obviously it’s not down to me, it’s down to a jury of 12. I told victims that if there’s a ‘not guilty’ verdict, that doesn’t mean the jury don’t believe you or think you are a liar. All it means is that there was enough doubt sown by the defence that a jury can’t be sure something happened, so they can’t convict. So, to be a barrister, you also have to be a social worker, a counsellor and a support network to a victim? Part of the job is to meet witnesses beforehand and afterwards and I would always do what I could to help them through what was a very traumatic experience of reliving things that happened many years ago. Sometimes I’d be dealing with children and incidents that had happened very recently and I’d have to explain things so that a six or seven year old child could understand. So yes, there were a lot of skills involved aside from standing up and arguing a case in court. What would you say are the highlights, and frustrations, of being a barrister? I used to love taking on a case from the start, getting the police involved in investigations and crafting robust arguments that could be easily followed by a jury. I took pride in trying to create
something that was understandable to a jury, especially in a complex case. After a conviction, I’d get a sense of pride that maybe, because of my actions, the right result had happened. Sometimes the right result would be an acquittal. It wasn’t about getting a conviction at all costs, but about making sure the evidence was presented fairly. When trials are delayed through lack of funding, victims and witnesses get deeply frustrated and disillusioned with the process and that puts people off coming forward or speaking to the police. The system lets itself down at times and that is difficult and frustrating to see. Overall, is it a career you would recommend to current pupils? Oh absolutely, yes. It’s hard work. You get paid reasonably well - although you’re often paid on legal aid rates which are set by the government - so don’t do it for the money! Being able to make a difference to people in real life situations is unbelievably rewarding. You can’t beat the feeling of standing up in court to address a jury and when something you say attracts their attention, and you start to see heads nodding. When a jury understands your case, and get the right result at the end, it is an amazing feeling.
