Sir Brian Leveson's talk: 7 November

By George Greenleaf

On 7 November 2024 the University of Suffolk Legal Advice Centre held its second Annual Law Lecture with guest speaker Sir Brian Leveson attended by students and local professionals.

When I first saw the sheer number of people who had showed up to the watch the lecture, this was when I truly understood the importance that Sir Brian Leveson had on our legal system. While I knew of his work bringing the Wests to justice and leading the 2011 phone hacking inquiry, it was only at this point that I realised his importance to the public. The audience for this consisted of lawyers, judges, law graduates, law students and members of the public demonstrating his importance and how many people recognise his work.

Sir Brian started off by talking about his upbringing and how no one else in his family worked in the law, showing us that anyone from any background can go on to work in the law. Alongside this Sir Brian also said “success can only be achieved if you put in the work and know more about the case than anyone else involved in it" showing us how the key to a career in the law is hard work.

Sir Brian than went on to talk about some of the most important moments and cases within his career such as when he became QC and his work prosecuting Rosemary West. Sir Brian also talked about how he overcame challenges that he faced in his career. One that stood out to me was when he talked about his experience prosecuting comedian Ken Dodd and how he overcame the challenge of when Dodd kept making the jury laugh.

At the end, Sir Brian went on to talk about his work in the Leveson Inquiry which investigated the ethics of the press after the phone hacking scandal and his disappointment that the second part of the inquiry did not commence.

Finally, Sir Brian took questions from the audience about his career. Sir Brian did refuse to answer questions surrounding his views of the press, as he didn’t believe it was his place to comment on this, as he still works in public office as the Investigatory Powers Commissioner.

This is an experience that has given us an insight into the life of a barrister and a judge and shown us how hard the job can be at times and how to overcome these issues.