Telephone Hearing

The court building at the moment can’t accommodate people save in exceptional circumstances.

If you’ve got a telephone hearing we will have notified the judge in advance of the hearing of your telephone number, so it’s important that you always make sure that we have up-to-date contact details for you.

For the hearing you need to make sure that you’re in a comfortable private place. These sort of calls can’t happen in a public setting.

You need to be able to concentrate possibly for a long period of time as some court hearings can be a whole day, more than one day but most are just part of a morning or an afternoon.

You need to make sure that you can be private within your own home and your children must not be able to over hear what you are saying, so if your children are in the same house with you please make sure somebody else looks after them and that they don’t come into the room for the duration of the hearing.

You’re not allowed to have anybody else in the room with you during the hearing and you’re not allowed to record the hearing.

Once you’ve introduced yourself if you have a solicitor or barrister to represent you they will also be in the hearing and they will do the speaking for you. But you may have to be cross-examined.

The solicitor or barrister representing the other party may also ask you questions.

If you don’t have a solicitor or barrister then you can present your case yourself but you need to wait until the judge invites you to do so.

At the end of the court hearing the judge may or may not give a judgement or may give you directions as to what is to happen next. The judgement may be given on another day and you may be given another day for a further telephone hearing.

At the end of the hearing the judge will conclude the call and that is your court hearing for the day.

Your solicitor or barrister should have a debrief with you after the hearing and will have spoken to you before the hearing possibly they may communicate with you during the hearing by WhatsApp or text.

If you have any questions about telephone hearings please do get in touch with me and I’ll do my best to help, thank you.

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