Читать книгу Nolle Prosequi - Ingrid Irwin - Страница 2

To my brave and incredibly wonderful clients, this book is for you, for what I could seldom give you as your lawyer: justice for you and your children. Thank you for trusting me through the years of toxic legal drama, and the endless frustration and heartache you went through when seeking justice. I know we’ve shared many tears and fewer laughs, but I hope that I have helped you in some way through some of the darkest moments of your life. It’s been an honour to share these traumatic legal events with you, even if only for the smallest of victories. I have the utmost respect for each of you. Always remember that life’s not a race; people resist and strengthen in their own time and know that you did what you could at the time with the resources you had, just to survive. You should never judge yourself against someone else’s story. There’s resilience, beauty and good in the little things too.

I can only hope that this book helps to validate your experience and your truth as the amazing people and devoted parents that you are. No one should have to endure the tiring cycle of family violence or legal re-traumatisation and for the latter I apologise for my role as a member of the legal profession. But I know what it’s like to go through it myself and in my memoir Doli Incapax I took my victim-lawyer whistle and blew upon it a high shrill note! Until victims in the criminal justice system have the right to a lawyer it will remain a toxic mess. Being brave and telling the truth is not enough to get justice.

The client stories and characters in Part A of Nolle Prosequi are purely fictional. I sincerely apologise if you mistake any of the client stories in this book for your own story because there are far too many similarities when it comes to sexual assault. Please note that I have continued using the pseudonyms that I used in my first book Doli Incapax for continuity. However, this will not cause any difficulties to the readers of this book alone.

Thank you to my husband Jon Irwin for his ‘dark side’ perspective. I have enjoyed our lively discussions and debates but it’s clear that I have been right all these years – your clients create my clients! And when your clients predictably win in the criminal justice system, the net effect is that my client’s also lose in their family law, child protection and intervention order matters that rely on a sexual assault conviction to win in those cases too.

I’d also like to thank my wonderful friend Sharon Ferguson for her poignant painting ‘GUARDIAN ANGEL LAWYER’ which she allowed me to reproduce in this book.