Joanna Hardy-Susskind

From our sofas in Britain, we lap up docuseries and podcasts scrutinising America’s ‘broken’ justice system, but the inner workings of our own remain mysterious: a place where bewigged barristers pace dusty corridors and speak archaic language to purple-robed judges. It is time to peel back the curtain.

Do barristers wash their wigs? What do officers and suspects chat about in the back of police cars? How do people try to get out of jury service? What goes on in a barristers’ robing room? And how do you tell someone that they are going to prison?