Not Just A River In Egypt

She's a little old lady with grey hair in a bun. Think Miss Marples.

Very much the stereotype of an elderly spinster - pillar of the local community, lynchpin of her church and with decades of faithful service to the poor and needy.

The thing is, she's in my court and she's lying to me.

She took an oath on the Bible, which is a big deal for a devout Christian, but there is no mistaking the fact that she is lying. She's really not very good at it and her account would require the suspension of a couple of physical laws even if it were logically consistent (which it isn't).

So what's going on her mind ? Has she found a way to convince herself that the lies she's telling aren't really lies? Or has she just stopped caring ?

Her problem, it seems to me, is that in short order her mother died, she was forced to retire from her job and her husband went off with another woman. Into that void came alcohol and now she's just like every alcoholic - deep in denial.

Denial means that alcoholics lie. They lie to themselves and to others about the extent of their problem. Telling the truth in court ("I was staggering around drunk and then drove home after necking a bottle of vodka") would have meant admitting to themselves and to their community that they have an alcohol problem. So she would prefer to lie ("My heels were too high and I drank the vodka after I came home from the driving").

I knew that alcoholics lied, but this was a powerful demonstration of the sheer power of alcohol over  even the strongest among us. 

As they say in the First of the Twelve Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous :-

"We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable."

I had never fully appreciated the full impact of that phrase "powerless over alcohol" before this trial.

It has been a several months since this woman came into my court and it has been a rare week that I haven't wondered whether her conviction was the "bottom" she needed to hit in order to get better, or whether it hastened her decline.

Appealing

If you don't like the verdict you get in a Magistrates Court, you have the right to appeal to the Crown Court. There you will be able to put your case to a "proper" judge who sits with a couple of Magistrates from benches different to the one that so disappointed you last time.

The most recent figures I could find show that in 2010 there were 13,800 appeals against Magistrates’ decisions. This is really quite a small proportion, being less than half an appeal per magistrate per year. Some of these were appeals against the verdict and some about the severity of the sentence, but either way, appeals stand less than a 50:50 chance of succeeding.

You could say that the low proportion of appeals to Magistrates' decisions is down to the crippling legal costs and the average 9 week wait, but I like to think it's because Magistrates are generally pretty good at their jobs.

They don't generally invite new Magistrates to take part in these appeals so it was only recently I got to sit on my first one.

The feeling in court is quite different from that in a Magistrates Court. The judge doesn't have to go back and forth with the legal adviser, so he (yes, more than usually "he")  can move things on, interrupt and change the order in which evidence is presented. There's more of a "flow" and business gets dealt with very efficiently indeed.

The judge I sat with was far from the stereotype - keenly intelligent, funny and eager to hear the views of the two Magistrates. 

As to the nature of the workload, the whole day was taken up with appeals against confiscations of money under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, which brings you into a world which (if true) has many strange features :-

 * You can be on Income Support and buy a £20,000 car for cash and still have £10,000 in cash on you later that day (without being involved in crime)

* Some people (again on Income Support) will carry £5,000 in cash with them on a night out. They may give the money to a friend to hold if the pockets on their trousers are too small. It is possible to have four friends in this situation, which is a perfectly acceptable reason for one person in a group to have £20,000 in cash in their jacket pockets when stopped by police.

*  Some men have girlfriends who give them bundles of used ten and twenty pounds notes as tokens of affection.

* You need £5,000 in cash to buy a suit for a wedding. When asked, it is perfectly acceptable not to be able to remember what day the wedding is or who is getting married. The best way to buy these £5,000 wedding suits is by driving around at 3a.m in a council estate with a well known drug problem.

* Some people sell their flats for cash and still haven't got round to putting the money in the bank a month later.

All in all it was kind of a shock when business was done to get into my 10 year old car and drive home, wondering if I had enough cash in my pocket to pay for petrol on the way back.

Em Eh ?

In the early days of this blog I was quite aggressive about the Magistrates Association. But as time went on, I mellowed somewhat. Their previously shambolic appearances in the media became merely ineffectual and I moved onto other things to be cross about.

Last week, after four years on the bench, I actually met my local Magistrates Association representative and my dander is well and truly in the upright position once more.

He was stirring up opposition to a totally logical merger of two under-utilised benches. I found it hard to understand his argument, but it seemed to boil down to "Scary change ! If we let them change this, what else will they change next, eh ?"

The vast majority of my scheduled sittings this year have been cancelled due to lack of work. This isn't happening as much on larger benches where workload can be spread around, so it seems well worth trying to me. But he (and presumably the MA also) are opposing it on the grounds that inertia has to be the best policy.

He was rather disappointed not to receive my support and asked if I was going to the Association's AGM. I had to further disappoint him by saying that I wasn't a member. He didn't ask me why, which was a shame as it would have been a great opportunity to ask why the Magistrates Association have been quiet, maybe even complicit, in management's attempt to impose arbitrary and unnecessary restrictions on Magistrates' online activities.

Actually, where are the Magistrates' Association on that subject ? I'm not a member so I don't expect a personal briefing but I can't find any comment from them online. Last I heard they were working hard to get us all nice badges.

Radio Free Stan's Dog

I'm Stan's dog and unlike Stan I have lots of opinions.

* Jessie J really can't sing
* Bolton Wanderers still lack a proven goalscorer  and look woeful at the back
* The new series of "Vexed" is better than the critics suggest

Airing these opinions does not make me a bad dog and I don't believe it would make me a bad Magistrate either (assuming they ever allow dogs on the couch bench)

If I could steal (bad dog ! bad !) a phrase from "The West Wing"

"Do (people) want to be governed by people who are animated, or animatronic?"

The big idea behind the Magistracy is that it is a representative sample of a community which metes out justice to those who have offended against that community.

It's the "representative" part of the deal that the current guidance on Magistrate blogging is in conflict with. From now on, to be a Magistrate means that you either need to keep quiet about being a Magistrate (as per the Masons) or to have no opinions (like Stan) or to be so unworldly that you don't do social media at all. Doesn't sound terribly representative of my community.

But hey, I'm a dog - what do I know ?

Woof.

Some of Stan's Friends could be Magistrates

There's a persistent rumour that Magistrates are to be banned from saying that they are Magistrates while blogging, tweeting or commenting on videos of cute kittens on Facebook.

Furthermore, the rumour is that they will be instructed to remove any past material that doesn't comply with the new diktat on blogs that they "maintain".

Rather than writing it every time, could you please note that Stan does not necessarily have any opinions at all and anything you might have read on this blog to suggest otherwise could have been dictated to him by any number of people, cartoon animals and voices in his head, some of whom may have been serving magistrates.

As to who "maintains" this blog - who says that person is a Magistrate ?

One of the Stan contributors (who may or may not be a Magistrate) tells me that he finds the new guidance to be a heavy-handed infringement of a fairly basic human right and puzzling in the light of the focus put on "transparency" in the current White Paper.

The contributor (also called "Stan" - very confusing) states that he can't think of anything more guaranteed to reduce transparency than legislating against the likes of Bystander's excellent blog - he believes that the guy deserves a medal for services of judicial transparency rather than being threatened with the vague and menacing prospect of "disciplinary action".

The text of the alleged guidance is reproduced below (also available on Bystander's blog - enjoy it while you can)

I still hold out hope that it's a prank - I've asked my bench chairman to verify whether it's authentic - until then I'm not going anywhere.

***********************************************

Introduction
This guidance is issued on behalf of the Senior Presiding Judge and the Senior President of Tribunals. It applies to all courts and tribunal judicial office holders in England and Wales, and is effective immediately.

Definitions
A “blog” (derived from the term “web log”) is a personal journal published on the internet. “Blogging” describes the maintaining of, or adding content to, a blog. Blogs tend to be interactive, allowing visitors to leave comments. They may also contain links to other blogs and websites. For the purpose of this guidance blogging includes publishing material on micro-blogging sites such as Twitter.

Guidance
Judicial office holders should be acutely aware of the need to conduct themselves, both in and out of court, in such a way as to maintain public confidence in the impartiality of the judiciary.

Blogging by members of the judiciary is not prohibited. However, officer holders who blog (or who post comments on other people’s blogs) must not identify themselves as members of the judiciary. They must also avoid expressing opinions which, were it to become known that they hold judicial office, could damage public confidence in their own impartiality or in the judiciary in general.

The above guidance also applies to blogs which purport to be anonymous. This is because it is impossible for somebody who blogs anonymously to guarantee that his or her identity cannot be discovered.

Judicial office holders who maintain blogs must adhere to this guidance and should remove any existing content which conflicts with it forthwith. Failure to do so could ultimately result in disciplinary action. It is also recommended that all judicial office holders familiarise themselves with the new IT and Information Security Guidance which will be available shortly.

Suspended Suspended

I've described before that it took a while to wrap my head around the idea of a suspended prison sentence - I really did not understand why someone who deserves prison shouldn't go to prison.
I learned though that it's in Society's best interest sometimes that people are punished in the community while they get cured of addiction or take care of their dependents.

So what happens when someone on a suspended sentence messes up again - straight forward, no ? They go to prison, right ?

Well actually, it's not totally inevitable. They may be doing well on the substance treatment program and their families may still not be able to survive without them. There is the option to simply add on some extra punishment and give them a last-last chance to sort themselves out.

I'm definitely not convinced about this one. I'm all for giving people a chance but when you've given someone a last chance and they don't take advantage of it then I think that prison is all you've got left. Otherwise what are the chances of anyone taking a suspended sentence seriously?

I had a chance to test this opinion recently - young man with a baby with his partner who also acts as father to her toddler. Was lucky to get a suspended sentence last time for multiple burglaries, now in front of us for trying the doors of parked cars at 3 a.m miles from his house.

Defence solicitor told us in some detail that his partner had a broken leg and she couldn't look after the children properly without him. The children may have to go into the care system for the duration of the father's sentence.

Sounds pretty grim, but its the defence's job to  make it easy for us to keep their clients out of prison and they often lay it on thick. In reality a broken leg wouldn't stop me looking after my children and there are such things as grandparents and aunts and uncles.

So we sent him away - the family and friends didn't believe it at first and then were extremely cross. One of them even gave us a Nazi salute which I suppose we should have done something about.

This brought us to lunchtime - I walked the chairman out to his car in case they were waiting for us out the back and then went for to the sandwich shop.

I returned to find my fellow winger in tears "What have we done to those children !"

First time I've had to comfort a magistrate, but I managed it. Basically I pointed out that we've done nothing to these children - what kind of a father was he at 3 a.m in the town-centre knowing that he was risking jail? Our job is to enforce the law and the children will, one way or another, be taken care of.

That night I slept fine, by the way. It's not pleasant but someone has to make these hard decisions or else thieves will continue to thieve. And if that means some kids have to lose their criminal daddy for a few months then I'm afraid that's the way it has to be. 

Asleep

This week a Magistrate was alleged to have fallen asleep during a trial. Worse, it seems he was caught bang-to-rights by the defence solicitor. Poor guy - suddenly his years of service count for nought and this is what he'll likely be remembered for.

Leaving aside the innocent-until-proven-guilty assumption that seems to have been suspended here, it's a tragedy that a momentary lack of concentration should end up with a good man being pilloried across the Mail, the Telegraph and all his local papers.

I've never come close to falling asleep in court. Sure, my mind has wandered a little. We're only human : we have no special abilities or training which allows us to keep a Zen-like focus for hours on end in an airless courthouse, no matter how enthralling the solicitors might be. And boy, some of those solicitor are far from enthralling.

You hear quite often in reports of football games that a player or a team "lost concentration" during a game. For example Jose Mourinho recently said that "(Real Madrid) ... lost a bit of concentration in the second-half ". If one of the best teams in the world can drift off collectively in the heat of battle then it's something that can happen to anyone.

So to summarise : we Magistrates take on a difficult job for no money or thanks and if we mess up even slightly then we can expect public ridicule. Put like that, you wonder why anyone would want to become a Magistrate. Or a football referee. 
 
My top tip : when my focus drifts, I start taking detailed notes. It's impossible as far as I know to fall asleep while writing. Not sure what football referees do,

Your Word Against Mine

In an ideal world, there are no crimes.

In a slightly less ideal world, every crime would be witnessed by at least one sober, independent witness with perfect eyesight and a photographic memory. 

In our don't-get-me-started-just-how-not ideal world, we often only have the victim's word to go on.

This makes it difficult to establish the truth beyond reasonable doubt.

It's a particular problem with Domestic Violence cases where almost by definition the offence is committed out of the public glare.

In the bad old days there would be no chance of a conviction - "it's just your word against his" - which is why historically so many abuse, domestic violence and rape cases never even made it to court.

Nowadays things do seem to have improved. More such cases are coming to court and convictions are possible without in any way diluting the absolute commitment to "proof beyond reasonable doubt".

This can only happen though when the accused's story is so full of holes and so internally inconsistent that there's no way that anything they say can be believed.

It also helps the prosecutor make the case when the accused is arrogant and hostile. It's hard to be an angry smart-alec while keeping your pack of lies consistent under expert questioning. In one recent case, the prosecutor said that if you were to believe his story, the accused must have "the reflexes of Spiderman". The accused nodded and said yeah - twelve years in the army - reflexes of Spiderman. Hmmm.

Today was a strange day - I gave Spiderman a community penalty.

Hooky

Schools live and die these days on league tables and Ofsted rankings. It's widely reported that many boost their exam results by teaching to the test and concentrating effort on kids with borderline grades. I suspect though that the increase in cases I'm seeing in Magistrate court involving truancy may be an attempt by schools and local authorities to boost the attendance scores.

We had four cases this particular afternoon - as opposed to one every few months previously.

(a) single mum with difficult child - she has tried everything and produced a file of her increasingly desperate attempts to get support from the school and the local authority. Their response was to send her a fixed penalty notice and then to hire an expensive barrister to hassle her in our court.

(b) family who took a particularly troubled kid on holiday during the last week of term - nothing timetabled for the last week of term and permission had been granted for all the other kids in the family. So it was a bit naughty when they went anyway, but the local authorities response seems like overkill. Their response was to send them a fixed penalty notice and then to hire an expensive barrister to hassle them in our court.

(c) foster family who have taken on a number of highly difficult kids - I personally would have recommended them for the New Years Honours list for the miracles they've worked with their other kids. But even their skills and energy weren't enough to ensure attendance of one particularly troubled child. Guess what ? The local authority gave them the support they needed and then were sympathic and patient ? Nope - their response was to send a fixed penalty notice and then to hire an expensive barrister to hassle them in our court.

Makes me cross - the expense of these actions are monstrous and would be better spent on helping the families involved. OK, they fell short of their responsibilities, but in all three cases we found that this was deserving of a tiny fine or an absolute discharge.

(d) was a bit different - the accused father had turned up drunk first time, had been sent away, failed to appear for the next hearing, which had led to a new charge. When he failed to appear this time, we issued a warrant to bring him in. He finally showed up two hours late, too drunk to participate. The ushers pointed him in the direction of the police station.

Personally, I've got no problems dealing with (d) - you have to worry about the child involved - but why the other three prosecutions ? The local media were in attendance and scribbling away - could it really be all about publicity and getting a message out to parents ? 

Politely Illegal

He was very polite. When the policeman first asked him to blow into the bag, he refused politely saying there was no point because he knew that he was over the limit. When he was told that not taking the test was a crime, he still refused. Politely.

Back at the station he remained polite, but refused to take the  test. He was reminded that if he refused to take the breath test again he would be charged with the offence of refusing to take the test. He refused. Again. Politely. And was charged with refusing to take the test.

Then he was led to the cells and asked the policeman how long he would be inside "10-12-14 hours - until morning anyway".

Then in one possible scenario, he panicked, changed his mind and asked (politely) to be allowed to take the test. But the copper told him to stop messing them around and get in the cell.

In the other possible scenario, that conversation never happened.

Then in the morning, even though he knew he had been over the limit, and even though he had consistently refused to take the test, he got an expensive lawyer to very impolitely try to get him off on a technicality.

The lawyer made much of the fact that couldn't be sure that he hadn't had a final change of heart that had been cruelly denied by a policeman in a hurry. And OK, so he left it late, but is it possible to define how late is "too late"?

We didn't have much sympathy for these argument and found the guy guilty.

What boggles me though is that this civilised, polite guy, did something wrong, got caught, acknowledged it was wrong, felt shame for doing it and yet still expected somehow to escape punishment. What is in his head ? Does he feel himself a victim? Does he feel he's been "punished enough already" ?

One interesting fact I got from the defence solicitor - it takes about 1 hour for the alcohol in breath to fall 7 micrograms. So say you decide to play for time and manage to delay the process by ten minutes then your reading would only be one microgram less. If you were twice the limit you'd have to stonewall for five hours - by which time you for sure would be charged with refusing the test.

Suspended

I have to admit still being puzzled by suspended prison sentences. To me, a crime is either so serious that only a prison sentence is appropriate or it isn't. What are we actually saying when we suspend a sentence ? And how do you explain it to the victim of a crime when the perpetrator "gets off with" a suspended sentence order.

I had two recent examples that might help. Both of these came into my court on the same day.

(1) A rather nasty common assault - two drunk young women beat up another drunk woman - with kicks and blows to the head with stiletto shoes. Had a bunch of equally drunk lads not intervened, I'm sure there would have been a murder. Both girls had little previous. Sentence : 12 weeks immediate custody

(2) Local cab driver with a serious cocaine addiction that he funded by stealing golf equipment from cars at the many plush golf courses in my area. Charged with theft and possession. Fairly extensive previous for similar. Sentence : 12 weeks suspended.

So what were the difference ?

* The girls had no dependents i.e. nobody else would be harmed by them being imprisoned
* The girls had committed a violent crime
* The girls were first-time offenders
* The cabbie had substance issues that probation reckoned could be addressed through a drug treatment programme. This could prevent further offending in a way that 12 weeks prison would be unlikely to manage.
* The cabbie had children.

There's no scientific way of putting the above together and deciding to get G4S to take the girls down and releasing the cabbie rather than vice-versa. We could have decided it was a "bit extreme" to send two first-timers to prison. We could have decided that the cabbie's considerable previous meant that he was due some stick this time. In the end, we need to decide which outcome is best for society as a whole.

Now there's a phrase that bears repeating : "... we need to decide which outcome is best for society as a whole"

Heck of a job description, isn't it ?!

Newton's Law

Newton's first law of motion is very soothing I find :-

"A body will continue in its present state of rest or, if it is in motion, will continue to move with uniform speed in a straight line unless it is acted upon by a force."

I was working from home Friday morning and decided to take a bit of a bike ride in my lunchhour to clear my head. I was proceeding down the main street of a local village, very much at a uniform speed in a straight line, when an external force, in the shape of a BMW, came out of a sidestreet and acted upon me.  

The physics became quite complicated after that. The car hit my back wheel, I skidded 180 degrees and ended up facing the way I had come, on my back with my right foot trapped under the bike.

24 hours later - this is what we have (yes, I am using one of my crutches to hit the button that takes pictures on my webcam) :-

No broken bones, just a bunch of what are coyly described as "soft tissue injuries". Could have been much worse - I'll just be hobbling around on crutches for a day or two.

Now, as a Magistrate I know very well that "emerging from a side road into the path of another vehicle" is a specific example of "driving without due care and attention" and he could be in line for a fine plus 3 to 9 points or a possible discretionary disqualification. As it happens I don't have any inclination to bring the law into this. Once I've given the bike a lookover I might send him a bill for any damage to that, but otherwise I just want to move on.

Sometimes stuff happens and the criminal law really doesn't help. Too early to tell how this might affect my thinking next time I get a careless driving case in court.

Booze and You Lose

You can be addicted to adrenalin, tanning, body-building, overeating, arson, undereating, texting, gambling, sex, work, porn, cosmetic surgery, computer games, self-harm, power, powerlessness, smoking, masturbation, caffeine, exercising, stealing, violence, vomiting, exposing yourself, social networking, shopping, religion, pleasing people, perfectionism, collecting junk, making money and to any one of a thousand of pharmacology's greatest "hits".

The Ministry of Sound reckon you can be addicted to bass and Robert Palmer points out you can also be addicted to lurve.

But it's the addiction to alcohol that is the one that I find the most horrifically fascinating.

How can it be so widespread in all cultures, so apparently random in its victims and why is it so difficult/impossible to cure ?

Although alcoholics come in all shapes and sizes, end-stage alcoholics have had all the personality drained out of them, and yes they look and behave very similarly indeed. And unfortunately that's the kind of alcoholic we get through the Magistrates court.

Unless you're a social worker or a Magistrate or live with an alcoholic yourself, I'm not convinced you would know how damaged these guys and gals are. You'll maybe have an image of drunk people shouting, fighting and chucking up in the street on a Saturday night. Most of these people aren't alcoholics at all - they'll feel rotten in the morning, sleep most of Sunday and have a quiet night on  Sunday. Merely enthusiastic amateurs.

Let me take you through the five levels of true alcoholism :-

(1) Adaptation - you drink so much and so often that your body chemistry changes so that the same level of alcohol has less and less effect.

(2) Losing Control - you drink to avoid feeling lousy rather than drinking to feel good. Thanks to your body's adaptation you need to drink so much you can't remember what happened the previous night. You don't drink just in the evenings - every hour is happy hour now. People start noticing and your work is noticeably affected.

(3) Manipulation - your life, assets and friends are used like chess pieces to get you the drink that is your main reason for living.

(4) Control, What Control ? - drink, pass out, drink more, repeat until drink gone, beg/borrow/steal more drink, drink that, repeat

(5) End State - body and mind broken, alcohol is consumed as a reflex until death occurs through organ failure, poisoning, choking, hypothermia or suicide.

We had a late stage alcoholic in the dock this Monday. He was overweight and sweat was gushing out of him. He'd been picked up on Friday night stealing meat from a supermarket to swap for booze and so when we saw him he hadn't had a drink in 60 hours and was really struggling. He had advanced heart disease, diabetes and cirrhosis of the liver. He was in his fifties but he had the face of an eighty year old who had died the previous month.

He had a considerable history of crime - back when he was just a Stage 1 or Stage 2 alcoholic, he had raped and burgled houses. Recently though he was only capable of drunk and disorderly and shoplifting - a cynic would have said that in this case, alcohol does seem to have done the world a favour.

He had failed many times to attend alcohol treatment programmes and recently the Magistrates had adopted a familiar pattern of giving Conditional Discharges where they could and short prison sentences when they couldn't. We decided this was one of those "couldn't" occasions, so off to prison he went.

Well, not quite. He reportedly collapsed in the cells and had to treated by paramedics. I'm sure the prison authorities won't thank us for dumping him on them, but what exactly were we meant to do ?

In a perfect world, maybe we would stuff him in a taxi to The Priory where he would receive the medical and psychology help he needed before being released, a new man,  back into a society to which he would now be capable of contributing.

**Rude word deleted ** !

You can't effectively section somebody for stealing bacon. And would people start feigning addiction to get a nice cushy rest-cure rather than prison ? And what about the shops - the law needs to protect them from having their shelves stripped bare. Remember, it's not all about the criminal - the victims' interests also need to be considered.

And anyway, Amy Winehouse continues to lose her fight against alcoholism despite receiving the best help that money can buy, so there's no guarantee that even the "dream" solution would get the job done.

I had a momentary mental panic about sending a dying, sick man to prison. But that's what Magistrates do on your behalf. If you don't like it, write to your MP and tell us to stop.

Legalese 101

Part of an irregular series on court vocabulary and the way it is interpreted by this Magistrate:-

• Melee
• Translation : "My client did not hit the complainant, but even if he did, it was an accident 
• Example Usage : "I maintain that the broken nose was most likely sustained in the ensuing melee rather than as a result of any premeditated act by my client".

• My client tells me that ...
• Translation : the phrase itself has no meaning except to prefix a statement that is at best a half-truth but which might persuade a bench to think twice about imposing custody.
• Example Usage : "My client tells me that he has an interview for a job on Monday"
• Contrast this with  : "My client has an interview for a job on Monday" - this is most likely true because the brief will have actually seen proof before making such a verifiable statement in a court of law.

Assault

I didn't have much confidence that I was going to enjoy my training session on the new guidelines on Assault. I had a sinking feeling that that this would be yet another attempt by The Powers to stop me imprisoning people who deserve prison just to save a few quid.

In fact the Guidelines are rather good. You feel there are some fine minds at work here and the detail indicates a huge amount of practical experience. True, there is a slight softening of the penalties involved in low level assault, but equally there is a hardening at the upper end which was a pleasant surprise.

I remember well a Common Assault case that I blogged about back in 2009. This was a hateful case where a man had argued with his pregnant wife (she was sitting on the stairs in their house) - she had yelled back that he couldn't hit her because she was pregnant - he shrugged and made sure that all his punches were to her face while in the background their young daughter was yelling for him to stop.

For some reason this was charged by the CPS as a Common Assault (s39) to which the defendent gratefully pleaded guilty, ensuring that all we could give was a tiny prison sentence or a Community sentence.

Under the new rules this would go right to the top end of the newly extended guidelines thanks to increased culpability and increased harm (premeditation, presence of a child, pregnant woman afraid for unborn child, sustained assault) and suddenly our wife-beater is looking to get the full six months (less guilty plea allowance). Doesn't quite make up for the CPS undercharging the offence, but that's someone else's issue to resolve.

One of the worked examples in the training materials concerns a drunk who punches an ambulance worker  in the face while they were doing their duty. As Stanetta is intending to pursue a career as a paramedic, I'm probably not the right Magistrate to ask what the correct punishment for this should be. The model answer is "High Level Community Punishment" - I'd prefer something involving electricity.

England and Wales and the Border Esk

Some days in court you wonder why you bother.
The morning was composed of trials that couldn't happen because some people or some paperwork was missing, and usually the absence of people was due to them not being sent some paperwork in time.

I blame the royal family - these wedding bank holidays have caused chaos in the government bureaucracy. Although someone in the previous court should have realised that setting a court date two weeks in the future was optimistic considering so few of those days were working days.

We did some busy-work (statutory declarations and the like) but even so, we had finished the morning business well before 11:00.

The afternoon was given over to private prosecutions, which can be very interesting indeed. We've seen everything from illegal truckers to truancy enablers, copyright criminals to benefit fraudsters. This afternoon though was devoted to fishing licence evaders.

Now don't get me wrong, a crime is a crime, and fishing without a licence involves entering a business premises and taking goods without making an attempt to pay. Fish larceny if you like.

But the police deal administrative with way more complex crimes than this with on-the-spot fines and cautions, and traffic wardens hand you a ticket if your car is illegally parked - so why oh why oh River Wye does this stuff end up in a Magistrates Court ?

Nobody bothered showing up to plead guilty or to attempt a defence so we managed to sentence a half dozen of these cases in less than an hour and that was the business of the day concluded. We had been in court for less than two hours total and had not seen a single defendant.

One interesting bit of trivia though : Scottish devolved government took over control of fishing on Scottish rivers - except for the Esk, which meanders back and forward across the English border. And so, the whole of the Esk (even the Scottish bits) remain under English law. This means that it is possible for Scottish people to be well inside Scotland doing some fishing and end up in an English court because they haven't got an English fishing licence.

Christmas Time

The Magistrate Court calendar is a little out of whack from reality. While some cases can be dealt with in a matter of days, others drag on for months. So just as the daffodils are coming out, Christmas has come to the courthouse in the shape of a bunch of offences dating back to December.

Christmas 2010 was not a season of goodwill to all men, and it certainly wasn't to all women. It was the season of dysfunctional families forced to spend time together, with an added sprinkling of financial worries, unreasonable expectations and binge drinking.

There's a widespread delusion that domestic violence is about a mentally deficient alcoholic man in a dirty string vest beating up on his long-suffering wife because his dinner wasn't on the table when he got back from the pub. In fact, it's hardly ever about that.

Tommy Cooper beat his wife. Hillary Clinton beat her husband. Ringo Starr beat his wife. Liza Minelli beat her husband. Abraham Lincoln was beaten by his wife. With Humphrey Bogart it was more 50:50 with his wife. The legendary libel lawyer George Carman punched his wife in the stomach when she was pregnant and threatened her with two knives, saying: "Which one do you want in you first?"

The abuse case I worked on concerned a very successful local businessman who took his family out for Christmas dinner, had a skin-full, went home  and then proceeded to beat his wife and then his teenage son who had gone to protect his mum. Despite his entire family coming to court and giving consistent testimony against him, he still insisted that he was the victim - in his view his son had jumped him for no good reason and his wife and other kids had lied to get back at him (for reasons unknown). Had his dog been called as a witness, I'm sure he would have protested that that dog had always had it in for him.

There were some particularly disturbing details in the story. For example, the wife, as soon as the argument started, went to the kitchen to tidy cupboards while her husband verbally abused their teenage daughter in the lounge. It spoke volumes of a long pattern of abuse that she can cope with only be going to a place where she has power and blocking out the unmanageable.

I looked at the man in the dock and wondered what was going on in his head. I sensed incredible weakness - a man who had lost the control he craved and could only impose his will through throwing his weight around.

I almost pitied him.

Almost.

Bungee Judge

A number of the inhabitants of my little bit of England get a fair bit of coverage on the front and back pages of the tabloids, so when their business makes it into court there tends to be quite a buzz about the trial.

I've not sat on any of the newsworthy cases before and frankly I was looking forward to reporting here how it feels to be involved in one.

So when I heard that a particular lady was due in court on one of my days, I thought that my chance had come.

I arrived early, around 09:00, went to the retiring room and read the order of business - no mention of the lady in question. One of my colleagues turned up and asked if I wanted to see the cells under the court - she knew one of the security guys well and he wouldn't mind giving us a tour. Excellent idea.

The cells are ancient - very minimal - the main feature being that the heating comes up through the bottom of a long metal bench. The facilities for the prisoners were much better than those provided for the guards I couldn't help noticing, but even so, not even up to Travelodge standards.

The guard's walkie-talkie squawked and we were told we had to leave because prisoners were arriving. We stepped out into the compound in time to see a WPC handcuffed to a very tall black woman in a very short red dress. You can tell I have reached a certain age because my mental reaction wasn't "Phwoarr!" - instead it was "By 'eck, she's not really dressed for this".

We went back to the retiring room to find a District Judge fresh off the train from London. Nobody knew he was coming but apparently we needed to move to a neighbouring court room for a Domestic Violence trial and he was to take care of the rest of the day's business, including the Lady in Red.

Now, I'm not usually a conspiracy theorist, but ... Is it possible that The Powers That Be don't trust Lay Magistrates with newsworthy trials ?

The most damning piece of evidence I can find is that the biscuits in his retiring room were just the normal Magistrate selection - the admin staff hadn't had enough notice to nip out and get the special Judge-quality biscuits made from caviar, saffron and gold-dust before the DJ parachuted in.

As it was, our trial ended up lasting all day and it was challenging and fascinating and really quite rewarding. Hizzonnah next door dealt with the lady in a few minutes and then presumably got the next train back to London. I can report that a racket was briefly made by the members of the press and other interested bystanders, but unfortunately I still can't tell you how it feels to be in the glare of media attention. Sorry.

8 day week

Our administration team has been slashed over the last few years and the few remaining staff are good people who work very hard for little money to remove the many obstacles in the way of us doing what we do.

The following email though suggests that maybe the increased workload is starting to take its toll :-

Is anyone available for a Saturday Court on Friday 19th February please?

How to make £2000 a day or £1 a day in prison

I'm a Maths graduate who qualified as an accountant who now makes his crust crunching big data sets for complicated companies. Give me numbers and I'm a happy man.

Well, I was until I became a Magistrate.

A few months ago we saw a farmer who had broken all kinds of environmental legislation the previous year by burying asbestos, spent uranium and kryptonite in his cow field (only a slight exaggeration). He had been heavily fined - then had stopped paying - threatened with prison - started paying again - stopped paying - threatened with prison - continued not to pay - given a final warning - didn't pay - sent to prison.

We sent him down for 12 weeks, a sentence which effectively wiped out the £100,000+ in fines and compensation he still had to pay. He'll likely only do six weeks, which means that every day inside would be equivalent to over £2,000.

Fastforward to more recent events and we have a drug addict with over 200 previous shoplifting offences who walked out of a supermarket with £24 worth of meat under his jacket. Over the previous few decades Magistrates had tried on him just about all the punishments and education programmes in the book - all had failed and the last half dozen times all that was left was the sort of short jail sentence the current Justice Minister hates us using (but not enough to change the law to stop us).

We were no different from our predecessors and we sent him down for 8 weeks - which if we assume he does half, means that his £24 of bacon cost him roughly 24 days of custody.

Unfair comparison ? To make it "fair" should we have given the farmer 460 years? Alternatively, should we could have sent the meat thief down for 17 minutes ?

There's a point there somewhere about how you drive yourself crazy trying to compare sentences given for different crimes to different criminals. The world of The Law is very different from the world of Logic and Reason - it has built up over time, cares too much about some behaviours and not enough about others, is inconsistent and frequently contradictory.

But I'm increasingly in awe of it - imagine a world without Law - a world where there's nothing to stop farmers from poisoning rivers and drug addicts from stripping the shelves bare. There are a few thousand things I'd change if I ever got elected to something though.

Vote Stan.