'Every day in the UK lives are suddenly, brutally, wickedly taken away. Victims are shot or stabbed. Less often they are strangled or suffocated or beaten to death. Rarely they are poisoned, pushed off high buildings, drowned or set alight. Then there are the many who are kilted by dangerous drivers, or corporate, gross negligence. There are a lot of ways you can kill someone. I know because I've seen most of them at close quarters.' High-profile murder cases all too often grab our attention in dramatic media headlines - for every unlawful death tells a story. But unlike most of us, a judge doesn't get to turn the page and move on. Nor does the defendant, or the family of the victim, or the many other people who populate the courtroom. And yet each of us has a vested interest in what happens there. Most people have only the sketchiest idea of what happens inside a Crown Court, but any one of us could end up in the witness-box or even in the dock. With breathtaking skill and deep compassion, the author describes how cases unfold and illustrates exactly what it's like to be a murder trial judge and a witness to human good and bad. Sometimes very bad. The fracture lines that run through our society are becoming harder and harder to ignore. From a unique vantage point, Her Honour Wendy Joseph QC warns that we do so at our peril.