Defending the Guilty: Truth and Lies in the Criminal Courtroom

Craig Raine Times Literary Supplement: Books of the Year

Literary Review

The official TV tie-in edition of Defending the Guilty.

How do we ensure that the guilty are convicted and the innocent walk free?

Shortlisted for the Crime Writers Award Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction, true crime meets humour in Defending the Guilty, a hilariously funny and eye-opening expose of the criminal justice system.

Every day, criminal barrister Alex McBride stands up in court and attempts to save people from conviction, prison, even a lifetime behind bars. Sometimes it's a hopeless case. Sometimes he has the chance to right a wrong. But mostly his clients are just plain guilty.

In Defending the Guilty, McBride takes us behind the scenes of Britain's criminal justice system. He introduces us to its extraordinary characters and arcane eccentricities, and tells astonishing stories of courtroom triumph and defeat. Whether he's defending hapless teenagers at Harlow Youth Court or prosecuting gold bullion robbers at the Old Bailey, these hair-raising tales reveal that justice rarely operates in quite the way we expect.