Family Values

I heard the other day on the gossip circuit that some prospective magistrates have been asked at interview what they would do if they found that their child had been using cannabis. Apparently the 'correct' answer is that you should report them to the police.
Well, if I had been asked that at my interview all those years ago, you wouldn't be reading this now. I am glad that my son and daughter, who are now in their thirties, have never, to my knowledge at least, been involved in the drug scene, although it would not be surprising if they had taken the odd puff at university - I just don't know and I don't want to know. What I do know is that if I had found my child to be in possession of any kind of drug, getting the police involved would be a long way down my list of options. The ideal way to deal with this at the lower level - and I am not talking about dealing Class A - is within the family. It is no criticism of the police to say that their procedures can lack the subtlety and delicacy that this situation would call for. I am just thankful that I never had to make such a decision.

R v Illsley

It is often useful in high-profile cases to look at the judge's full sentencing remarks, since the press has neither the space nor, often, the inclination to publish. This is what the judge said in the case of the disgraced MP Eric Illsley.

Payday!

The House of Commons has voted (with the big guys standing carefully aside) to stick two fingers up at the ECHR (or 'court' as the Daily Mail has taken to calling it) by voting to defy any move to give the vote to prisoners.

Back in the Inns of Court and in solicitors' offices across the land, from the dingy to the sumptuous, spontaneous champagne parties are taking place, as m'learned friends anticipate the flood of irresistible compensation claims that will force the Government to give piles of our money to many of our 80-odd thousand prison inmates, with generous costs to their lawyers.

Great call, Straw and Davis, great call!

For a grown-up view, have a look at Lord Pannick QC's piece in today's Times. He estimates the bill at up to £50 million.

Trial and Errors

It was a nice change to hear a trial today, as I have been doing mostly remand courts, appraisals, and PoCA cases for the last couple of months. The main business of the day was a drink-drive case; these don't often plead not guilty as the number of possible defences is limited. As so often happens, the driver was caught because of a silly little accident in which he misjudged a manoeuvre and scraped his car, just as a police car was passing by. His reading was about one and a half times the limit, not the highest we have ever seen, but he escaped a long ban by the skin of his teeth because he was just a few weeks past ten years since a previous drink-drive conviction. If the stop had been just that little bit earlier, we would have had to impose a three year ban.
He was represented at his own expense and pleaded not guilty for reasons that I can't go into; we realised why he had laid out the cash for a solicitor when we heard that he drives, or rather drove, for a living.
For many people a driving ban can be a huge and costly punishment, and that is why the likes of 'Mr. Loophole' flourish.

We also sentenced an unprincipled fellow who used a forged disabled driver's badge as he went about his business. We fined him the best part of £500 and told him that we thought this was a mean and anti-social offence.

A Little Bit Of Common Sense

It was refreshing to hear Kenneth Clarke interviewed by the usually-irritating Jeremy Vine yesterday (it's on iPlayer). Vine has a populist tabloid approach to issues, but the Justice Secretary's unflurried voice of experience prevailed, as I heard it. The usual Mailesque callers came on with the usual Laura Norder rants, but KC had the measure of them.

And Another Thing........

Two more things have emerged from discussions surrounding changes to the courts:- firstly there is, certainly in my area, a halt to the recruitment of new magistrates for at least eighteen months. That makes sense, giving the new arrangements time to bed down, but will be a disappointment to some people who had planned to apply in the near future. The Advisory Committees are also being shaken up, and I hope that the new system will be more receptive than their predecessors to the opinions of the benches they are recruiting for. At my own court the Bench Chairman repeatedly asked for more JPs over several years, and two, three, or four were appointed at a time; then, over not much more than a year we were allocated twenty new colleagues, throwing a strain on the mentoring and appraisal process. Quite rightly the selection process only requires that the recruit can offer 26 half-days a year. This helps to accommodate those with work commitments, but means that it can take three new low-sitters to replace an old codger such as myself when I finally retire.
Secondly, the reorganisation means that the District Judges will have to be reallocated - a potentially touchy subject.

All Change

Across the country work is going on to cope with the widespread programme of spending cuts, court closures, bench mergers, and staffing cuts. There is much uncertainty among HMCS admin and court staff, as it is not just inevitable that jobs go, there will be relocation and reorganisation galore. The smart money (i.e.coffee-room gossip) is on Justices' Clerks being reduced to just one per region and on a cull of higher grade legal advisers. Court sitting days might well be rationed, and work shifted around between courthouses. In reality the Clerk to the Justices vanished some years ago. The old and excellent system of the JC being appointed by a committee of JPs, and being master in his or her own fiefdom, responsible for legal and admin staff and the training of magistrates was swept away, only the job title being retained. My old Clerk used to describe his job as a cross between a family solicitor and a butler.
Benches that are due to merge are meeting at Bench Officer (chairmen and deputies) level to thrash out the details and to iron out the many variations of day to day practice. Realistically, some magistrates will have to move bench as their courthouse closes, and the rest of us will have to be flexible about taking some sittings at the other courts in the group.
Time is short. At the AGMs in October the combined benches will have to ratify the changes and elect their new bench officers, with one Chairman for the new bench, and enough deputies to ensure that there are enough to cover each courthouse. It is all feasible with goodwill and flexibility, but we are going to have to work at it.

Postscript - I have just spoken on the phone to a colleague in another part of London, and it looks like their area already has enough staff volunteering to take the money and go to avoid compulsory redundancy.

Don't Feed The Need For Weed!

Thanks to the imdispensible Crime Line for this update on sentencing cannabis farmers. A large proportion of the professional operations are run by Vietnamese gangs, and it is unusual to see the main man - all we see is the 'gardener', paid a few pounds and given somewhere to sleep in return for tending the crop. It's above my pay grade, and goes straight off to the wigs in the Crown Court.

R v Auton and others, Court of Appeal, 3 February 2011
In Xu [2007] EWCA Crim 3129; [2008] 2 Crim App R (S) 50 at 308 this court considered the general level of sentencing for large scale commercial production of cannabis. The present four cases require us to consider sentencing in cases of smaller scale, but well planned and resourced, cannabis cultivation operations. Often, but not always, they may be carried on in the defendant's home.
Held (para 14):
i) where the cultivation will genuinely involve no element of supply of any kind, the sentence after trial is likely to be in the range 9 to 18 months, depending on the size of the operation, and the personal history of the defendant;
ii) where the cultivation is for the defendant's own use and is not a frankly commercial operation for profit, but will involve supply to others, the sentence after trial is likely to be in the range 18 months to 3 years; where any individual case will come within this range will depend on, inter alia, the scale of cultivation, the investment made, the number of parties involved, the nature of the likely supply and, in the upper reaches of the range, the level of any profit element; a previous history of directly relevant similar offending may take the case above this range.
iii) where the cultivation is a frankly commercial one designed with a view to sale for profit, and whether or not the defendant may use a limited quantity of the drug himself, the sentence will usually be somewhat below the Xu range because of the smaller size of operation, but is likely to be in the general range after trial of 3 to 6 years.
The circumstances, character and any criminal history of the defendant will as always be relevant. Where cultivation is accompanied by unlawful abstraction of electricity, often on a substantial scale, that will ordinarily be an aggravating factor. Adjustment should be made for a plea of guilty in the usual way according to the stage at which it was tendered.
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Crim/2011/76.html

Wind of Change

A newspaper reports a serious problem.

The article goes on to say:

The crime will be enforceable in a new 'Local Court' system which will also have powers to punish a range of other crimes in the bill set to be debated in the country's parliament.

Well, well. I hadn't heard that Louise Casey had moved abroad.

Not To Be Missed

This programme, available for a limited time on iPlayer, should be seen by every magistrate and by everyone who wants to know about the people who pass through the lower courts. I have sat at Highbury Corner (where the film was made) on occasion, and it is almost as grim on the inside as it is on the outside.
The offenders who speak to the camera on their way into court (and if they are lucky, on the way out) are sad, damaged, and frightened in most cases.
I have dealt with hundreds of people like this. I feel only compassion and pity for the state in which they find themselves, but like every other sentencer I am trained to know that my first duty is to sentence the offence, and not the offender.
Any magistrate will recognise the need to set aside personal feelings, even faced with pathetic human detritus such as we see in this film. It will never be easy though.
I cleave to no formal religion, but I cannot quarrel with: "Hate the sin, and love the sinner".