On
the 21 April, the full Loreto Balbriggan Mock Trials team headed down
to the Criminal Courts of Justice, transforming for a day into
barristers, solicitors, witnesses, jury members and others. We had
been preparing for the cases, the DPP v. Francis Cara and the DPP v.
Pat Plaice, for about two weeks. Both were criminal cases: one was
about an alleged burglary, and the other an alleged arson attack in
the form of a petrol bombing. We were all very excited and nervous
entering courtroom 13, where the three trials were due to take place:
we were acting as prosecution and defence for the Pat Plaice case,
and as defence for the Francis Cara case. Our barristers were Emily
O'Sullivan, Zoefia Woods, Ailís Odell and Ailbhe Rogers, and working
alongside them were solicitors Megan Carroll, Ciara O'Reilly and
Alessandra Griusario. We also had brilliant court registrars,
tipstaffs and timekeepers, Ruby Pereira, Aoife Kenney and Alannah
Ward who ensured that the rules of court were upheld. Also working in
the courtroom on the day were court reporter, Orlagh Herne,
photographer, Milana Vilenskya and sketch artist, Lauryn Flynn.
Each
case was presided over by a judge, and while a jury (made up of
students from other schools) was present to decide on a verdict, it
was the judge who scored the contestants and who decided on the real
winner of each trial.
There
were stunning performances from all of our witnesses, whose quick
thinking and talented acting helped them to outmanouver the opposing
barristers who were cross-examining them, and in the case of Aoibha
Mulhall (as the shopkeeper Gabby Codd), the other barrister struggled
to even get a word in, as she rambled on and on! Maeve Curnyn acted
as Pat Plaice, the accused: a former burglarer determined not to
return to the dark place of her past, Mount "Sadness", and
who was simply a diabetic whose insulin monitor had run out of
batteries, which she needed straight away. Emma Dolan acted as Billy
Boyce, an eccentric physics professor who smokes a pipe, and uses a
walking stick, and who was wrting his thesis on molecular physics and
the effects of dark matter on the growth of mushrooms (a special
thanks to Mr Higgins for his tie!). Ailís played Garda O'Reilly,
while the gun-owning, but terrified-out-of-her-life shopkeeper, Gabby
Codd, was played by Aoibha Mulhall. The dear, charming Majorie Magoo,
a just-turned-60-year-old off-licence worker, was played by Clíodhna
Bowers, who was "on it like a car bonnet!" Finally dressed
all in pink, was the Legally Blonde styled Dearbhla Flynn, acting as
the young Francis Cara, who owned the nail salon, 'Fingertips by
Fran'. Unfortunately, the judge refused to let her take her pink
handbag and Bruiser the chihuahua up with her to the witness stand.
We
won all three of our cases! There were tears and hugs at every
victory of the day, and to top it all off, it was announced at the
end that we had won 2nd overall, out of around forty schools
nationwide! Everyone was absolutely thrilled, knowing that we had
gotten through to the second round of the competition, the
semi-finals. It couldn't have been done of course without the hours
of hard work and preparation we had put into the Mock Trials,
including the efforts of the research team and the costume
department, as well of course as the time and effort put in by Mr
Daly and Ms O'Neill, and all the teachers who had to put up with us
missing class for over a week!
The
work however, is not yet even nearly finished. Best of luck to all
the girls who will be taking part in Round 2 of the Mock Trials
competition, the semi-finals, on May 12th! Keep up the hard work!
