Damian Garrido QC, Cecilia Barrett and Edward Bennett take part in charity moot

Damian Garrido QC, Cecilia Barrett and Edward Bennett took part in a charity moot held in the Supreme Court yesterday (24th October 2019).

Classics For All (classicsforall.org.uk) is a charity that promotes the teaching of classics in state schools. This charity event was based on Lysistrata, the play by Aristophanes, set in the 5th century BC, in which Lysistrata brought an end to the war between Athens and Sparta by encouraging wives to deny their husbands conjugal benefit. The moot featured a mock trial of the husband’s petition for divorce of his wife, Lysistrata, and was heard before Rt Hon Lady Arden of Heswall DBE and a jury of distinguished lawyers, classicists and students.

Damian Garrido QC, Cecilia Barrett and Edward Bennett, acted for Lysistrata and successfully argued that the promotion of the greater good outweighed any short term disadvantage to her husband and that refusal to consent to sexual intercourse should never be a good reason for the dissolution of a marriage. The jury agreed by an overwhelming margin and the petition was dismissed. The event was reported in The Times and can be viewed here.