I was excited for the court reporting week of the digital news days because I usually enjoy the experience of going to court, watching a trial, taking notes and reflecting on the events. This day, however, did not go as planned.
We entered the court with a strong idea of what we would do. Ben and Emily would go into the case while I stayed outside and researched any background on the defendant which would be useful to know as well as checking local news outlets to see if parts of the case had already been reported on, and then I would enter the case and take notes with them.
We first tried to enter sentencings, however, the two that were planned for that morning had both been postponed, meaning we had to look through the court listings and find another case to enter. Once we found one, Ben and Emily went in while I sat by the entrance as that was the only place I could get a decent internet connection.
When I headed upstairs, Ben came out to get me to speed with the trail. I was told that there had been an issue with the case I had been researching and that they had entered a different one, but it was an interesting case. Ben and Emily had sat through the defendant being cross-examined and had already made a good amount of interesting notes. The defendant was being tried for abusing his wife and children.
As Ben was explaining the trail to me, a lecturer from York St. John’s approached us and asked about the case since she was going to send some of her students in to watch it so the three of us spoke quite openly about what was happening in the case.
It was at this point that an angry woman came up to us and informed us that she was the defendant’s daughter and that it was “all bullshit” and that she was a witness and that our talking might have affected her witness statement and that she would be informing the judge once she gave her statement.
Being shocked and slightly scared that we could be thrown out of the court. We decided to pull Emily out of the trail, regroup and decide what would be done next.
We decided to leave and write up the article with what we had since Ben and Emily were able to take a good amount of notes and the case was very interesting. My only qualm was what I didn’t get the chance to enter a case myself so I felt that I missed out on that.
Writing up the article went very smoothly, having very few issues, besides having to call up the court for them to double-check some of the details we had regarding the defendant.
Since I didn’t take notes on the case myself, I decided to take a more active role in writing the article and took charge of the structure while Ben and Emily gave me quotes to use as well as giving their opinion on the article.
Kane Daly 