Book 22 - The Prosecutor by Nazir Afzal

Reading date - August 2020

I love watching programmes about serial killers and Nazir Afzal is often featured on these shows.  This is basically an autobiography detailing how and why he got into law and how he managed to bring around changes in the law that maybe people from other backgrounds would have been unable to do.

The book begins with his childhood and how both his parents became pillars of the community giving advice and getting justice for the people who couldn't trust the police.  Being ethnic myself, I fully understand this and respect his parents for doing this.  When you're new to a country where nobody rates you, you need to stick together until you're strong enough to understand the laws and take on the establishment yourself.

The book details his trips to Pakistan, his time at uni, his first job, how he moved from Birmingham to London and then to Manchester.  He covers how he managed to change the law around honour killings and then the grooming cases that he was involved in.

I really liked this book, it has the human aspect to it and shows how he failed and how he succeeded.  The book is harrowing in parts and it shook me to my core when it described in detail how certain honour killings were carried out.  It really hit me hard how family can kill their daughters, just because they dare to see a man they actually like. 

All the details of the women driven to suicide or who were victims of honour killings will never leave me.  Banaz Mahmood, for example...Her cousins raped her, killed her, put her into a suitcase and buried her body in the garden of a house under a fridge.  Years ago, a lady jumped in front of a train at Southall station.  At the time, it was a very sad suicide but slowly, slowly it came out that she jumped to get away from her abusive husband.  She was born in the UK and he was from India.  How someone can totally break another person down like that is disgusting.  What must have been going through her head as she got off the bus, went over the bridge and jumped with her two kids...I know what Southall station is like and every time my train goes past it, I think about that poor lady.  However, I think about everyone who has committed suicide there..and there are a lot of people.  The lady's kids were a toddler and five years old.  The lady and her oldest child had to be identified by their dental records.  The baby died in the hospital.  Then there was the story about the lady who hung herself in the shed in Southall..and her grown up kids found her.

After that horrific section, the book details how dealing with victims changed and how truly, there is more than one way to skin a cat.  Usually, where people are involved in one law breaking, they will be involved in others, e.g. modern slavery, terrorism and money laundering are often interlinked.  As is the sale of counterfeit goods..someone needs to make the goods (modern slavery and counterfeiting), the money then needs to be cleaned as it comes from a crime (laundering), the money is then used to fund things like terrorism.  There is a story in there of modern slavery which angered me so much that I've decided to do some pro bono work in the field.  

The book reinforced the belief I have that some humans are capable of such evil that they don't even deserve to be called humans.

If you're in the legal field and interested in the side of law that is seldom detailed as it doesn't deal with stuff that touches everyone, I would definitely read this.  I think barristers would enjoy it.