Small World

This Daily Mail report caught my eye today, and I was particularly interested to read it because I was at university with Mr, Abbott and we spent some interesting times together. I will not embarrass him by recounting any of the things that we got up to, but I can safely say that he is a fine actor and one of the funniest men that I have ever met.
No wonder he has done well at the Bar.

Mission Creep

As many of us feared, the practice of so-called 'Community Resolution' is quietly spreading to more and more serious offences that ought to come before a court.

It offers a quick clear-up, boxes ticked, files tidied away, and that's the end of it. It's also cheap. These factors were bound to render the practice irresistible to target-driven policemen.

Autres Temps, Autres Mœurs

The series of arrests that began following the Jimmy Savile revelations continues apace, and some charges have now been laid, while some cases are not being proceeded with, the arrested people being released from what must have been an appallingly stressful period on bail.

I have no comment to make on any particular case, of course, but I do feel a niggling sense of unease at the sheer age of some of the allegations that are being made. Given the very high burden of proof in a criminal court, just how sure can a jury be about something that is alleged to have happened twenty, thirty, or even more years ago?

With the impending abolition of committal proceedings in the magistrates' court, our function will simply be to shunt the cases off upstairs to Hizonner.

Picking Up

After a quietish couple of months my rota has started to fill up. We are four-sixths into the rota period, so a lot of vacancies are cropping up, and the rota team can be excused for turning to a retired old gent such as yours truly. I only choose to do adult court work, but I can be flexible, and I can sit in any of the three seats on the bench. Last week I was called at twenty past nine to chair a court; fortunately I was up and dressed, so I just put on a jacket and tie, and was walking into court at ten past ten.

I have agreed to take on a couple of two-day cases, but I shan't get too excited about that until we see how they turn out. When a not guilty plea is entered the court must actively manage the case before setting a trial date. Totting up witnesses, then factoring in such time-hungry features as one or more interpreters, a vulnerable witness who needs screens or a videolink, we reach a time estimate that all too often proves to be unnecessarily long. Then there is the reluctant witness that is such a common feature of domestic violence cases, or the defendant who has chosen not to avail himself of the one-third discount for an early guilty plea, but changes his mind at five past ten on the day of trial.

Court staff will then scurry about rearranging work between the courtrooms. If all goes well we may still get a day's work to do (thanks to the practice of over-listing) but if not it's off home. perhaps via the pub where they are not used to seeing me in a suit.

What Is It About Lawyers?

Today, in a remand court. Defendant has a tenuous grasp of English as his second (or third) language. Interpreter is not too good, and prosecutor is a mumbler who would come second to Mrs. Malaprop in an English test.

"So you attended the property that evening?"   Blank stare, and interpreter doesn't look any more sure.

What's wrong with; "did you go to the house?"

So that's how the grumpy old chairman rephrased the question.

Just Wondering....

Do people think that I ought to accept advertising on the blog, as so many others do?

Phew!

This  looks like good news for the humble blogger. We had already decided to ignore the proposed regulatory structure, but it looks as if we may be beneath the notice of the Whitehall heavies. So be it.

The recently-updated guidance on judicial conduct includes last summer's guidance on 'blogging' pretty much word for word. So while it looks as if we are unlikely to be stuffed for two million quid in legal costs, we might still face bell book and candle for dissing the senior wigs. Which is something we have never done.

Let's see how it goes.

Me Voici Encore

I am sorry that it has been a bit quiet around here recently, but a bug acquired in France got the better of any urge to write, or even to whistle up another team member to fill in. I was due to sit in court at the beginning of the week, but I was relieved to find that the office had cancelled me because another case had overrun. The tablets that I was given by a pharmacist had a distinctly soporific effect and I have no wish to embarrass myself and the court by nodding off on the bench.

A lot has happened in the last couple of weeks, and I shall try to catch up with some key points in the next few days. In the meantime, can I recommend the excellent The Prisoners that was broadcast last Monday on BBC1 (so it should still be available on iPlayer). There have been a number of interesting factual programmes about prisons in recent months, and they serve as a useful antidote to the usual 'they're all just holiday camps aren't they?' rants. Prison Dads, broadcast on March 27th, focused on the many young men who sit in jail while their wife or girlfriend struggles to bring up one or more small children.

I shall return to the theme.

Hiatus

When it goes quiet around here it is usually down to my indolence, or, less commonly, the fact that I am busy.
I shall be taking Madame Bystander for a few days in Normandy tomorrow, but I plan to take my iPad, as the hotel promises wifi (en Français: 'weefy') so if the Apple virtual keypad doesn't beat me, I may be able to chip in a few aperçus.
À bientôt!

I sat idly in the waiting room of my local tyre dealers last week while a couple of new tyres were being fitted, and I was reminded that when I first joined the bench motoring courts were a daily feature in Court Four. Sometimes the offences were technical, such as bald tyres or other vehicle defects, sometimes bad driving was alleged, and sometimes there would be document offences such as no licence, no insurance, and no MoT. The only guidelines that we had were on four sides of pink A4 paper,, and dealt exclusively with motoring offences. Fewer than half of those summoned ever turned up, either taking the chance to plead guilty by post or simply ignoring the summons in the hope that it would go away. Cases were presented by a police officer and the postal pleas could develop a rubber-stamp feel to them, even though we were meticulous to see that everything was done properly.
The letters were usually left until the afternoon, and in those more relaxed days the chairman would sometimes put one of the wingers into the chair without prior warning, which gave newbies the chance to get the feel of making pronouncements in an environment where you couldn't do much damage.
I haven't heard a motoring list for about ten years, because such work as remains after fixed penalties and other out of court disposals such as vehicle defect notices and speed awareness courses, is dealt with in so-called Gateway courts. I spent a day sitting as a visitor in one of the earlier Gateways at Highbury Corner, and was alarmed to find a list of over 300 cases, with a queue stretching along the corridor and down the stairs. We managed to deal with the appearances by about 5.45 pm and then block adjourned everything else.