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> Defendants' Meeting
Defendants' Meeting
A defendants' meeting puts people who have been charged with offences in touch with the people who organised the event, sometimes for the first time.
Defendants may need immediate help to get lawyers or Legal Aid, for example, or even just floors to sleep on if they have to remain away from home for a court hearing. The meeting is an opportunity to give defendants reassurance if they need it, and to tell them what support they can expect from your organisation. There may be questions about bail conditions, Legal Aid or bind-overs, for example, or how their cases are likely to develop. The standby lawyer may be prepared to attend such a meeting, but will not give specific legal advice to defendants about their individual cases.
The defendants' meeting is a very important practical opportunity to match defendants to the witnesses who saw them being arrested. It is useful to do this quickly while memories are fresh. Often witnesses will not have met the defendants before and will not know them by name. Unless they come to a meeting and see the defendant, the only method of matching them to the right arrest is by their description of the arrested person, or by the time and location of the arrest. Where there have been many arrests, particularly at a mobile protest like a march, there is often great confusion about location, order and times of arrests. Sometimes the only way to sort out which witnesses saw which arrests is to have everyone in the same room at the same time.
Defendants might want to provide passport photographs of themselves or, if you have a camera at the meeting, might want you to take photos of them, to help with identification. This is often an enormous help to you, witnesses and lawyers where there are more than a handful of arrests. Make sure that defendants are happy for you to circulate their photos and other information about them that they give you.
Defendants may need immediate help to get lawyers or Legal Aid, for example, or even just floors to sleep on if they have to remain away from home for a court hearing. The meeting is an opportunity to give defendants reassurance if they need it, and to tell them what support they can expect from your organisation. There may be questions about bail conditions, Legal Aid or bind-overs, for example, or how their cases are likely to develop. The standby lawyer may be prepared to attend such a meeting, but will not give specific legal advice to defendants about their individual cases.
The defendants' meeting is a very important practical opportunity to match defendants to the witnesses who saw them being arrested. It is useful to do this quickly while memories are fresh. Often witnesses will not have met the defendants before and will not know them by name. Unless they come to a meeting and see the defendant, the only method of matching them to the right arrest is by their description of the arrested person, or by the time and location of the arrest. Where there have been many arrests, particularly at a mobile protest like a march, there is often great confusion about location, order and times of arrests. Sometimes the only way to sort out which witnesses saw which arrests is to have everyone in the same room at the same time.
Defendants might want to provide passport photographs of themselves or, if you have a camera at the meeting, might want you to take photos of them, to help with identification. This is often an enormous help to you, witnesses and lawyers where there are more than a handful of arrests. Make sure that defendants are happy for you to circulate their photos and other information about them that they give you.
