Judged highly

QE has been summoned to appear in the regional finals of a national courtroom competition after winning an outright victory in the first round.

The Year 9 boys beat off eight other schools in the Magistrates’ Court Mock Trial Competition to secure their place at the regional finals in May.

English teacher Peter Morton, who organises participation in the mock trial, said: “Our magistrates had to work impartially and constructively with magistrates from other schools to reach fair verdicts in the trials. Teams were assessed not on the outcome of the trials – it wasn’t a knock-out – but on the quality of their performance in the courtroom. Two teams progressed from the heat – and we finished top of the table.”

The schools gathered at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court for the first round of the competition, which is organised by the Citizenship Foundation. The eight other schools involved included Bishop Challoner School and Southgate School. Competition organisers provided a scenario that involved the theft of a mobile phone from a flower shop.

For QE, Niall Murphy was the defendant and he was robustly defended by fellow QE team members, Tej Mehta and Mipham Samten, who secured his acquittal. Milan George and Shyam Mamtora were QE’s prosecutors. Both they and Tej and Mipham had to cross-examine witnesses from other schools. Conversely, QE’s own witnesses (Rehan Khan, Aashish Khimasia and Ibrahim Al-Hariri) had to respond to questioning from competitors from other schools.

Other roles played during the competition included the magistrates, a legal adviser, an usher and a reporter.

This year’s success mirrors QE’s achievement in 2013, when a School team also progressed to the regional finals.