'Completely compelling': this unmissable tour of London ends with a murder trial

I'm sitting in the gallery in Court 5 of the Old Bailey in London, watching a real-life murder trial as if it were a theatre performance. A barrister sums up the case for the defence, advancing the unlikely sounding theory that the victim was accidentally shot dead by one of his friends in the confusion of a confrontation between two gangs.

It's puzzling, heart-breaking and completely compelling.

I've just finished a Legal London Tour led by Tim Wood, a former Fleet Street Reports courts reporter who is infectiously nostalgic for the good old days when his beat was a mainstay of the press and his office was the Seven Stars pub.

His tour begins at the 19th-century neo-Gothic Royal Courts of Justice, where a glass cabinet on the second storey holds a Latin transcript of the Guy Fawkes trial of 1605. It shares a space with an exhibition on legal costume, where Wood explains how and why judges and barristers came to wear wigs: they were popularised by the French aristocracy, adopted by the English rich, and retained by the legal profession as a sign of solemnity and a form of disguise.

Wood leads us through the building while maintaining an entertaining commentary on the history and traditions of the institution, and sharing stories from his reporting career (the cases that stick most in his mind are child murders and IRA bombing trials).

He takes us to the partly medieval Inns of Court and then the Old Bailey, where Greater London's biggest criminal trials are held.

Outside the court, he distributes a list of brief summaries of the day's cases at the Old Bailey and invites us to take our pick.

"Basically, I'm able to use that because I've bought a lot of drinks for a lot of people over many years, and they still tell me what's going on," he says.

Tour groups are not allowed into the Old Bailey, but individual visitors can almost always be admitted, provided there is space available in the gallery, and are asked to spend at least half an hour in the courtroom to minimise disruption to the proceedings.

Wood leaves us with a warning that we are not allowed to take any electronic items into court. Storage of phones, chargers, smart watches and key fobs is available from a nearby travel agent, which charges about $4 per item. Around the corner, a gift shop looks after bags for about $10.

London courts are used to tourists, and court-watching is a hobby for some local people. Until a few years ago, there were "a group of old ladies at the Old Bailey who used to be there every day and who didn't have to go into the public galleries," says Wood. "They were allowed in the press seats."

Today's court list is an extraordinarily dramatic calendar of serious crimes, including the murder of a teenager with a zombie knife; the murder of a boy with a samurai sword; the murder of a Greek tourist; a drive-by killing; two stabbing murders; two shootings; and an intriguing arson attack on a storage unit containing satellite equipment due to be sent to the Ukraine, allegedly committed on behalf of the Wagner Group of Russian-backed mercenaries.

Cases are normally heard until about 4pm to 4.30pm, but it is a Friday afternoon, which, says Wood, is the worst time of the week since "the barristers and judges conspire to finish early so they miss the rush-hour traffic to get back to their country estates or whatever".

I choose my murder trial at random, and follow someone into Court 5, where four men are accused of the murder of a 20-year-old who died of gunshot wounds in West London in June 2024.

I am immediately fixated. Nothing is quite as I expected.

I am seated with a handful of other sightseers, behind the families of the four accused, looking down upon the dour, busy courtroom dotted with men and women in wigs and gowns, most of them working at keyboards and looking at screens.

The courtroom is smaller than I imagined and the defendants in the dock are closer to the jury box. The jury is made up of 11 men and one woman, all dressed very casually, as if they are on holiday like me. (Apparently women are generally underrepresented on juries in serious criminal cases.)

Tiny tragedies play out in the expressions of hope and despair in the dock and among the families in the gallery. True to Wood's prediction, the judge dismisses the jury just after 3pm.

The writer travelled at his own expense