Bystander I haven’t heard whether the smugly grinning fun-revolutionary who was arrested for wrecking the Boat Race has been charged with an offence. On the face of it, a Public Order Act Section 4 might be a runner (he has  cheerfully admitted planning and the intention of causing harassment alarm and distress). If he is  [ Read More ]

Bystander   The CPS are shortly to begin their new ‘paperless as far as the door of the court’ document handling system. I wish them well and hope that the widely expressed fear that this will be just another Government IT fiasco proves to be groundless. The gossip grapevine tells me that local solicitors are  [ Read More ]

Bystander I have seen it scores of times, but it never fails to leave me feeling sad. A scruffy young man is in the dock, charged with a serious offence that is likely to end up with something like eighteen months from Hizonner in the (likely) event of his conviction. In the gallery is a  [ Read More ]

Bystander Once again the press is making a meal of the story that Charlie Gilmour, the spoilt brat student fun-revolutionary has been freed from a nominal 16 month prison sentence after about a quarter of the time pronounced by the judge. There are plenty of papers and saloon-bar experts who love the chance to have  [ Read More ]

Bystander The No. 10 spin machine has overruled Kenneth Clarke on penal issues, and a raft of measures has just been floated for reasons that are blatantly political. As it happens I had lunch with two good magistrate friends today; between us we have something like 80 years’ experience on the bench. We had no  [ Read More ]

Bystander John Thornhill, the MA chairman, is quoted in yesterday’s ‘Times’ (paywalled, I’m afraid) as defending magistrates against allegations of ‘conveyor-belt justice’ and over-harsh sentencing in riot cases. Once again, he did not go out of his way to stress that magistrates had little to do with it, as almost all of these cases have  [ Read More ]

Bystander It’s been another night when courts have sat to deal with those arrested in connection with the riots. A couple of thoughts occur: The great bulk of the cases have been handled by District Judges. Some lay justices’ noses have been put out of joint by this, but it was probably inevitable, firstly because  [ Read More ]

Bystander All we can do while riots are still going on is to support those who are tackling the trouble on the ground, and to wish them well. The criminal justice phase will begin shortly. I am not commenting on the system but here are some of the issues: Those arrested have to be taken  [ Read More ]