Called
to the Bar at Gray's Inn in 1971, David Wolchover did his pupillage at
Cloisters, the famous set then headed by the radical silk and one-time
maverick Labour M.P., John Platts-Mills QC. A founding member of the
chambers of Sibghat Kadri (later QC) at 11 King's Bench Walk, Inner
Temple, in 1973 David remained with Kadri until moving to the chambers
of Ivor (later Lord) Richard QC at 11 South Square, Gray's Inn, in
1988. With the dissolution of that set he helped to form Lion Court and
after a short spell as a sole practitioner returned there in 1999 as
Head of Chambers. In the following years he presided over the move to 7
Bell Yard, the change of name, the purchase of the building and the
set's continued expansion and development. On turning sixty in 2007 he
left full-time practice but remained as joint Head until 2012. In 2013
the members of 7 Bell Yard moved to bigger premises at Goldsmith's
Building in Inner Temple and became Church Court Chambers, where David
remained a “door tenant” for some years. He is now once again a sole
practitioner at Ridgeway Chambers .
At
the Bar David Wolchover has always specialised in crime. Although his
attitude on law reform is progressive, not to say in many respects
radical, he is an ardent supporter of the independent Bar and the
traditional system of barristers undertaking both prosecution and
defence work. Like many of his generation, he only defends although he
has absolutely nothing against prosecuting. It is just that he feels
more comfortable in defence. It was the same when he played for his
school First Eleven football team. "It's probably something deep-rooted
in my psyche. It's the challenge of facing an attack by superior
forces." In his seventies he is content to remain a humble junior -
"not that I have much of a choice in the matter" - but he does think
there is something rather silly about labelling a man of his age and
experience a "junior," like an ageing thespian, he says, still aspiring
to take on romantic leads. But he is no stranger to "top barristers'
work," having led in murder and having defended in the Britannia Park
trial, billed at one time as the longest criminal trial in English
legal history ("I attribute the length – 18 months – to the prolixity
of others," he says modestly). David is one of those few barristers who
has managed to span the sometimes difficult divide between the
rough-and-tumble of practitioner life at the coal face of criminal
justice and the contemplative pursuit of academic writing, although he
remains unaffiliated to any academic institution. In his time he has
contributed a host of articles mainly on criminal law matters to a
variety of law journals and a number of articles to leading national
dailies, as well as finding time to produce several full length
treatises. He is sole author of The Exclusion of
Improperly Obtained Evidence (Barry Rose Publishers, 1986), lead
author of Wolchover and Heaton-Armstrong on
Confession Evidence (Sweet & Maxwell 1996), co-author with
Neil Corre of Bail in Criminal Proceedings (2nd
ed, Blackstone Press, 1999; 3rd ed, Oxford University Press 2004),
contributing co-editor of Analysing Witness
Testimony (Blackstone Press, 1999), sole author of Silence and Guilt: An assessment of case law on the
Criminal Justice and Public Order Act 1994 (Lion Court Lawyers,
2001), contributing co-editor of Witness
Testimony: Psychological, Investigative and Evidential Perspectives (Oxford:
OUP, 2006), and Witness Testimony in Sexual
Cases: Evidential, Investigative and Scientific Perspectives
(OUP, 2016). He also maintains on this website two book-length
treatises and a third shorter treatise. An acknowledged expert on PACE,
he has been instrumental through direct representation and through his
writing in securing a number of important improvements to the Codes of
Practice. He says that his proudest achievement is having co-authored
the first detailed critique (in the New Law Journal ) of the
Government's proposal to curtail the right to jury trial, the arguments
in which were widely adopted ("without attribution needless to say," he
says, wearily).
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