Reflecting on the recent victory of my client Sharon Binks over Greater Manchester Police at trial at Manchester County Court, as well as that of my client Paul Peters over Merseyside Police at Liverpool County Court, brings home to me the importance of the no win, no fee system we have in this country and – frankly – the importance of lawyers such as myself who are prepared to run such cases all the way to trial in the face of significant financial risk and all the opposition which the well-resourced and publically funded institutions of the Police can marshal against us.

Up until the late 1990s Legal Aid was widely available for low and middle- income clients – the vast majority of litigants of course – for both personal injury actions and claims against the Police.

From 1999 the availability of public funding for the individual citizen (as opposed, of course, to…