In Raising Your Game’s film ‘Getting ready for court’, young people talk about the things that helped them prepare
“When they say ‘be at court at ten thirty’, your heart is going at a million miles per hour. You’ve got to make sure you get there on time – you don’t even wanna go to sleep the night before. You just wanna be up and ready, standing at the door waiting. And then you get there and there is the biggest, longest wait.”
“I let my solicitor do the speaking, because I’m not good with speaking.”
“My mum told me ‘here’s a shirt, wear a shirt, wear these shoes’. I ignored everything she said. But looking back, if you dress in a tracksuit, they’re gonna think he ain’t interested, he’s a thug.”
“My solicitor said ‘it’s fine, I’ll read it out to you if you don’t understand’. So I was happy with my solicitor – he’s a good solicitor.”
“The most difficult thing is when they’re reading everything out, because they’re making it sound so bad. You feel like you wanna jump up and say ‘that’s not how it happened’, but that doesn’t help your case, cos it shows another side of you – it’s anger and aggression.”
“They [magistrates] decide what’s gonna happen to you, so it’s not gonna do you no harm if you talk to them with respect.”
“My solicitor said ‘there’s gonna be a room full of people’. She explained who’s gonna be sitting where.”
“When you haven’t got anyone sitting there, you feel lonely and you feel nervous. I took my mum once and it gave me a lot of support.”
“It’s all about body language – you’re not gonna be sat in a court and be smiling and sniggering. You’re gonna be looking sincere.”