Brief practice of examination in chief

Offence: Theft, Section 1 Theft Act 1968

Prosecution Witnesses:
Mary Kay
Over 18- Shop assistant at Sparks
Jack Wills- Security Guard at Sparks

Defence Witness:
Defendant, Kendra Lamar

Instructions:
1. Prosecution- You will prepare for the questioning of Mary Kay and Jack Wills. Both
over 18 of age.
2. You may lead on the (i) date and (ii) place of incident.
3. This is just an exercise to get you familiar with questions and applying feedback to
your advocacy style.
4. Read the brief several times. For this exercise try not to prepare complete questions
but rather practice using the statements to guide your questioning.

Mary Kay
Age: Over 18
Occupation: Sales Assistant at Sparks
Sparks address: The Bullring, Birmingham
Residence address: 18 Milford Avenue
I was on my shift which started at 6am on 16 November 2019. I spent the morning doing
delivery in the back of the shop before being put on the shop floor. I hate working on the
shop floor as I do not like interacting with customers, but sadly on that day, delivery finished
at 2 pm so I had to cover breaks on the shop floor as from 2 pm although I had not had my
break yet. I just do not like working for Sparks as they do not care for their employees at all.
At around 3.45pm, as I was tidying up the table where the tshirts were- some customers
have no manners at all, they just throw things around- I noticed a woman on my right side
holding a necklace close to her face. The fact that she was looking at the necklace just 2
inches away from her face struck me as extremely weird. It was indeed one of our most
popular, but pricey necklaces. She also looked towards the entrance several times. She was
5 ft 2, of fair complexion and was wearing a black coat. She would have been about 10 m
away from me. I have produced an exhibit with my statement labelled Exhibit SP/1. I then
bent down to pick up the tshirts that were on the floor. When I looked in her direction again,
she was gone. A short moment later, I heard the store alarms go off. For a brief moment, I
thought nothing of it as the alarms do go off occasionally especially when the till assistants
fail to remove all the tags from customers’ items. I then heard someone shout “HEY STOP!”.
I identified the voice as that of Jack Wills, our store security guard. I instantly rushed to the
front, went out of the shop and saw him standing a couple of metres ahead with the same
woman I saw a few moments ago inside of the shop. I saw Jack pull her hand and there was
the necklace I saw her examining before. I am willing to give evidence in court.

Jack Wills
Age: Over 18
Occupation: Security Guard at Sparks
Sparks address: The Bullring, Birmingham
Residence address: 30 Filton Close
On 16 November 2019, I had just started my shift around 3.30 pm in the afternoon. I was
talking to Charlie who is the new trainee guard. I was in charge of explaining to him the tasks
he would have to do on the job, but we got distracted at some point and started talking about
the football. He was an avid Arsenal fan whilst I was a Liverpool fan. I really don’t
understand how anyone can support Arsenal given that all the players in their team are
absolutely terrible. Charlie was also telling me that he prefers rugby to football and that I
should start watching rugby. I became bored of our conversation after a while so I reverted
back to discussing our security protocol. At one point, the security alarm went off and we
both looked at the door. I believed that this was a good moment for me to show Charlie how
to check for tags and remove them when needed. I started approaching the customers who
went through the door. There were 2 of them. I knew I had to be vigilant on that day as our
CCTV cameras were not operating and were being repaired. Rosie, a sales assistant made
her way to one of the customers who stopped to have his bags checked. Charlie then told
me that he thinks that the woman was the one he saw being arrested a month ago at a JD
Sports store. I then darted across and shouted “HEY STOP!” at the woman and she didn’t
stop. I caught up to her, spun her around and told her show me what’s in your hand. Before
she could do anything, I pulled her hand and found a necklace with a Sparks store tag and
security tag on it. I told her she had to come back with me to the shop. She did not resist.
She looked like she was in her early 20s, she was quite short about 5 ft and was wearing a
black North face puffer coat. I am willing to attend court to give evidence.

Defendant:
Ms Kendra Lamar accepts visiting the store on 16 November 2019. She was wearing a black
coat. She casually browsed the whole floor of Sparks store. She says that she saw the
necklace, picked it up and made her way to the till immediately. However, she realised that
her purse was missing. She thought that she must have left it in the car which was parked
just outside the store. She contends that without thinking, she went to retrieve her purse
from her car and forgot to put the necklace down thus she was not being dishonest. She
knows the necklace was costly but she says she can afford it as she works as a Marketing
Assistant at a firm in the city.