Two teams of University of Bolton students took part in a mock trial to get a taste of a “real world” court room.
The teams were drawn from the schools of law and health while the trial also included a public gallery, witnesses and a jury also made up of students.
Together they took part in a “law moot” centred around gross negligence manslaughter involving a care home residents.
Assistant teaching professor and solicitor advocate Ian Bowden said: “The link between healthcare and law is always strong, so it has been a fantastic project to bring together students from these two programmes to give them the very best of what we can offer.
“The court sessions allow law students to practise key skills, while also helping to demonstrate to those in the health sector how their actions can interact with the law.
“Our students received the very best experience as part of their studies on real world aspects of their current and future roles.
“We are delighted with the feedback we received, which was extremely positive.”
Mock trials are often held by university law departments to help students build up the practical skills that the profession will require of them.
Schools and colleges also hold similar events with Eden Boys School in Astley Bridge having recently organised a series of mock trials for students interested in legal careers.
In the University of Bolton’s case, this also proved extremely valuable experience to the health students.
They saw for themselves how failing to complete tasks up to standards could lead to criminal proceedings, while the law students got to sample a real live court room.
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The exercise and other like it allowed the health students to complete a range of tasks centred around standards of professional practice as well as ethics and legal considerations.
It also allowed the law students to test their advocacy skills as part of an assessment that is built into the LLM With Solicitors Qualifying Examination programme held by the University of Bolton.
Assistant vice chancellor for health, Dr Jane Howarth, described the initiative as a “great example of university wide collaboration.”
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