OnDivorce Messageboard

I filed petition for divorce on the ground of my wife’s unreasonable behaviour in August 2009 and just received a notice for a court hearing next Thursday and I need some advice on whether I need a barrister to represent me in the hearing.
Background
Our marriage started having serious problems in 2003 when she groundlessly suspected me having an affair with a colleague as I came home late one night due to work committment. We started having heated arguments when I tried to defend myself and the relationship went downhill rapidly since. At one stage, she left me and our son and went back to her mum’s for 6 months in 2005. After she returned, we tried reconciliation, but not long after she started suspecting me again. In addition, whatever I do seemed to annoy her. She verbally abused me; If anything was damaged at home, she would say I deliberately did it. If I bought food she did not like, she would bin it and shout at me, saying I deliberately bought it to annoy her. She refused to have sex with me for the last 18 months. I didn’t want to divorce as our son was still young (he is 13 now), but things had become increasingly unbearable and I decided to divorce her. I filed the petition in August, 2009 on the ground of her unreasonable behaviour with the help of a solicitor, but my wife reacted badly on the petition. She said that what I wrote on the petition damaged her reputation badly and in fact I was the one who caused the breakdown of the marriage. She is not legally qualified and did not use any solicitor, as she could not find one whom she could trust so she filed the response herself. In the response form, in the column asking if she wanted to defend the case, she put in (somewhat ambiguous) wordings like: she disagreed with the petitioner’s allegations. She also requested the court to allow the divorce after two years separation (though I explained to her that there was no legal ground for the court to do so, she won’t listen). The court interpreted her response as that she wanted to defend the divorce petiton and requested her to pay a fee for the defence and she did. However, a few weeks after she filed the response, she wrote to the court again to say that as she felt her safety was threatened by me at home, she would want a divorce. To avoid any ambiguity, my solicitor wrote to my wife to request her to explicitly inform the court that she would not defend the case, but she refused to do so. She said to me that she wouldn’t do anything I asked her to do, she would only follow the court’s instructions, and since the court did not ask her to write such letters, she would not.
The court then instructed my solicitor to apply for a hearing of 30 minutes when we filed the affidavit and the direction for trial. Today, my solicitor told me the hearing would take place next Wednesday and the purpose of it was for my wife to ‘show the causes’ (I don’t remember the exact wording as I haven’t seen the court letter). My solicitor said she would instruct a junior barrister to represent me for this 30 minutes hearing with a cost of £350. Her reason for using a barrister was that given a defended divorce was very rare, she didn’t know what kind of questions the judge may ask, and having a barrister would be safe and cost-effective. I have some doubt on this. My question is:
Given that the hearing will only be 30 minutes, I imagine that the court will be mostly asking my wife about why she thinks we should not be divorced or asking her what she really wants to do given she also agreed to divorce in her second letter to the court. In this circumstance, I seem to have a very strong case anyway, there should not be much for me to do in court as the time is so short, is it really necessary to pay for a barrister? In addition, my wife almost certainly will not use a legal professional in the hearing, if I use a barrister in court, will the sympathy go to her?

Just a bit background about my solicitor, when I started the petition, I used a solicitor, however, about 2 months ago, she left the law firm (I only found out a week after she had gone) and the current solicitor took over from her. From talking to her, it seems to me that she is less experienced than the previous one. When I discussed the possible court hearing with my original solicitor, she told me that if the court mainly wanted to question my wife about her intentions, I might be able to represent myself in court without a barrister as the questions would be directed mainly at her. However, the current solicitor gave complete opposite advice. Can someone please tell me whether I should use a barrister for this short hearing? Any serious pitfalls if I represent myself? I need to let my solicitor know my decision in two days, so your advice will be greatly appreciated.
Ian