Thom Dyke interviewed by The Advocacy Tutor

Thom Dyke was interviewed by Sonia Simms for The Advocacy Tutor Brief.

Spotlight on Thom Dyke

Thom Dyke, is a barrister at Deka Chambers. His practice spans serious crime, human rights, prison law, and police law. He is regularly instructed in sensitive and high-profile matters, especially those involving overlaps between civil and criminal law or multiple jurisdictions.

His peers and instructing solicitors describe him as “an excellent advocate whose personal approach to clients is second to none” and “exceptionally talented. He is ranked in Chambers & Partners and has been engaged in work such as the Operation Northleigh investigation into the Grenfell Tower disaster on behalf of the Metropolitan Police.

The Interview 

1. Choosing Crime: What made you gravitate toward criminal law in particular, and stick with it despite the challenges and the demands?

I don’t relate to those people who say they wanted to be a criminal barrister since they were in short trousers.  The truth is that I didn’t end up in crime until after an ill-judged decision to undertake a commercial chancery pupillage, and even then, I don’t think I really had any proper idea of what it involved.  I suspect that 90% of the criminal Bar would say that we stick with it because criminal advocacy is an addiction, and none of us are temperamentally suited to doing anything else.  Once you’ve tasted the highs and the lows of criminal advocacy, nothing else quite compares.

2. Advocacy and Persuasion: What do you think makes someone a persuasive advocate?

I remember making an application a few years ago, and when I sat down, the judge turned to my opponent and said, “well, Mr Dyke is obviously right, isn’t he?”  My opponent allowed himself a half-smile, and spent the next hour dismantling my argument, piece by piece.  At the end, the judge declared my submissions to be not as obviously right as he’d first thought, and found against me.  What struck me was the humility of my opponent’s submissions.  There was none of the sarcasm you sometimes see used to bolster a weak point.  It brought home how truly great advocates are able to make themselves almost invisible and let the ineffable logic of their argument do all the hard work.

3. On Teaching Advocacy: You’re a pupil supervisor and train advocates at Inner Temple. What is the most common advocacy mistake you see when training advocates?

Time and again young barristers ask filler questions which serve no purpose whatsoever.  In examination-in-chief it detracts from the substance of their case, and in cross-examination it allows the witness a priceless opportunity to undermine their case.  There’s a feeling the poor advocate has worked so hard to get to the point where they are on their feet that they are damn well going to make the most of it, whether anyone wants to listen or not.  Fortunately, it’s an easy mistake to fix, and the results are immediately apparent, which is as satisfying to them as it is to me.

4. Courtroom Commendation: In R v Lewis [2014] 1 WLR 2027, the Court of Appeal noted that: “Mr Dyke has argued that dry issue of law on paper and orally with fortitude and skill.” How did it feel to read those words in black and white? In a profession where we’re often our own toughest critics, do you ever allow yourself to feel proud?

It’s always nice to receive praise from the bench, especially when you’ve worked hard on a difficult case.  But as any honest barrister will tell you, the moment when the judgment starts describing you in glowing terms as the greatest advocate since Norman Birkett, is the moment that you know you’re going to lose the case on the merits.  Those quotes make great fodder for your profile on chambers’ website, but they are secondary to the outcome of the case.  In this profession it’s as dangerous to feel pride at victory, as it is futile to feel shame after a loss.

5. Cross-Examination Style: How would you describe your cross-examination style, and has it changed over the years?

In my early years I fell into the common error of seeing cross-examination as a process by which a barrister batters their witness into submission.  It’s not a particularly effective way of persuading your tribunal, and the more experience I got, the more I realised that the most powerful cross-examinations are those which give the witness the space to damn themselves.  I can think of no better recent example of this than in the Post Office inquiry, where Sir Wyn Williams asked three entirely innocuous questions of Paula Vennells.  He then asked her ‘why?’  Because of the framing of his questions, she was unable to answer, and sat in a dejected silence which was more revealing than any fire and brimstone cross-examination might have been able to uncover (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CGAi6lqaORE from 2:03:15).

6. Guantánamo Reflections: In 2024, you travelled to Guantánamo Bay to observe the trial of the 9/11 defendants, a visit that formed the basis of your London Review of Books article Detained in Guantánamo. You wrote about the use of so-called “clean team” interrogations and how years of torture had tainted the reliability of those confessions, warning that admitting such evidence would “greatly undermine the actual and apparent fairness of the criminal proceeding.”  What was your overriding impression of Guantánamo? And what do you most want people to understand about what is still happening there?

Too few people appreciate there are still ongoing trial proceedings or that the half-dozen remaining detainees are unlikely to ever be released.  My hope is that public understanding may improve with the possibility of a Supreme Court appeal against the recent decision of the DC Circuit Court of Appeals to quash plea deals from three of the 9/11 defendants.  Guantánamo is a difficult place to describe without resorting to the cliché of ‘Kafkaesque’, but I think it’s best represented by Hannah Arendt’s phrase, as embodying the “banality of evil”.  My piece for the London Review of Books (https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v47/n06/thom-dyke/short-cuts) is a good place to start, but for anyone who wants to find out more, I wholeheartedly recommend reading America’s Trial by John Ryan (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Americas-Trial-Torture-Case-Guantanamo/dp/1510778918/), together with the redoubtable Carol Rosenberg’s journalism for the New York Times (https://www.nytimes.com/by/carol-rosenberg).

7. The Times Crossword: You are known to enjoy The Times crossword, what do you enjoy about it, and does it sharpen any skills that help in your legal practice?

It’s important to have something which takes you away from the stresses of the day job, and it doesn’t really matter much what you choose, as long as it’s something you enjoy.  For me, a good cryptic crossword is ideal.  The Times is difficult enough to require a bit of effort to complete, which makes it all the more satisfying, and I can dip in and out during a busy day.  One of my favourite clues from recent years is: Silence notifications (7,6).  I’ll leave it to your readers to work out the answer for themselves…

8. The Case That Stays With You: Is there one case you’ve worked on that still lingers with you, professionally or personally?

Oddly the case which has stuck with me is a case which never made it to trial.  It involved a man accused of failing to bury his mother’s body.  Although the case raised interesting and novel arguments regarding criminal liability for an omission, after a proper application of the Full Code Test for Crown Prosecutors, we decided it was not in the public interest to proceed.  Offering no evidence was undoubtedly the right thing to do, and reminded me of the need for prosecutors to always keep in mind the need to prosecute cases fairly, without losing sight of the public interest test.

9. The Future of Advocacy: What do you think will define the next generation of criminal advocates, and what skills will be most essential?

When I had my first mini-pupillage, I was told that there was no future for the criminal Bar.  That was as untrue then as it is now.  Whilst we have an adversarial legal system, we will need barristers trained in the art of forensic advocacy.  That advocacy may be in front of different types of tribunals (if the Leveson reforms are implemented), but it doesn’t change the underlying demand for the skills of advocacy.  I suspect one of the most significant practical challenges will be the explosion in open-source evidence and scepticism about its reliability.  Some of that scepticism is well-founded, but there are pervasive myths about the degree to which electronic evidence may be manipulated.  The next generation of advocates need to grapple with the tricky question of how such evidence can best be presented to juries.

10. Stranded on a Desert Island: You’re stranded on a desert island, no rescue in sight and no tools to aid your escape. You can take three items with you for comfort, survival, or sanity. What are they, and why?

The first item is a copy of the Decca recording of Der Ring des Nibelungen, conducted by Georg Solti (and some way of playing it).  Second, the complete works of PG Wodehouse.  And third, a collection of The Times crosswords (and a decent dictionary).  These three items would provide an amenable way to pass the relatively short period of time before my lack of practical survival skills resulted in my inevitable demise.

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