BENCHES GET IT RIGHT

Latest annual figures indicate there were 1,462,441 cases at the magistrates courts.  Of these 4,739 were appealed at the crown court against the verdict. 2,061 were allowed.  3,600 were appealed against sentence and 1,752 were allowed.  As a non statistician or lawyer I would suggest that this shows that benches did their job fairly well. 

THE PILLAR CRACKED

I really hope I`m not being repetitive but it seems that cases like this are more frequent than perhaps a decade ago.  Even if that is not the case the process of dealing with them has failed, is failing and will continue to fail until old ideas are swept away.  As with 70% of such offending alcohol and/or drugs are responsible for the recidivism.  Only by treating that underlying cause in a new and radical fashion will there be a possibility of rehabilitating such people.  The current so called choices for sentencers and probation service are next to useless. I have argued here for many years that that new form of institution required to carry out treatments for such offenders must have them under lock and key and subject to compulsory detox procedures. Write "workhouse" in the search box and take your choice of posts. Dismiss the underlying theme as is your wont but consider how you would address the problem. Add the comments to your reading. Apart from the ill informed ones most of the them indicate a legal failure to deal with the issue.  Public lack of confidence in our judicial system which these comments represent is another crack in the justice pillar which is the mainstay of democracy.  

WHAT A PREDICTABLE PROBLEM

Every day thousands of demands are made of those in the probation services the efficiency of which as readers will know was decimated by Grayling`s disastrous incompetence at the MOJ.  One such demand is when an offender is being considered for unpaid work as part of a community sentence. Whether or not s/he is represented the bench should make detailed inquiries as to that person`s availability for such work; eg whether a disability could be a problem, childcare duties, employment obligations  etc etc. Since every court appearance by every offender costs the state money  it is in everyone`s interest that when sentencing all possible questions are raised as to any unforeseen problems that might arise. In the case reported here unless one was in court the quality of such pre sentence investigation is unknown but we do have reported the result.  Perhaps with the culling of senior JPs by retirements inexperienced magistrates are being let down by their legal advisors or perhaps pressures of time through overlisting are having not unexpected consequences. 

US AGAINST THEM:WHEN NOT IF

There is no doubt that at many levels the criminal justice system is badly damaged if indeed "broken" is too severe a description; an opinion I do not hold. The civil courts still manage to operate with a modicum of fairness to those who use it.  Its being employed by very high net worth individuals to settle their disputes and divorces lines the pockets of those lawyers who specialise in such matters where legal aid is akin to band aid for billionaire pop stars.

It is unquestionable that there is a great temptation for unrepresented defendants in magistrates courts to plead guilty to "get the matter over with at the lowest possible cost".  Even before the introduction of Grayling`s iniquitous Criminal Courts Charge I as well as many colleagues had the personal experience of explaining to such defendants the downside of such hasty ill considered decisions often to little avail. For many years and with varying frequencies depending on the MOJ press office priorities and the loudmouth of the newest Minister to sit in Petty France, there have been hints that short custodial sentences ie those handed down by magistrates courts should be abolished.  The last few months have seen a resurgence of such "hints" on social media. Then a few weeks later we are told that the probation service grievously wounded by Grayling amongst his other failings is to be given a new lease of life as a quasi nationalised service in 2021. Every month prison numbers are published.  Most recent figures below:-

All manor of the MOJ`s arts and crafts are employed to reduce these numbers including the automatic release after half a sentence has been served. But the current judicial system just like the current political system is not fit for purpose.  Every day in every magistrates court in England and Wales benches (and District Judges MC) are making decisions which fly in the face of common sense and purpose. This is but a single example.

The very basis of the pillar of justice can no longer be relied upon whether "justice" is used in its simple legal definition or its application to the trials through which many of the public are put when dealing with government departments.  The NHS eg is considered by many to be a totem; to be sacrosanct in its current form when such a system is demonstrably failing those who bet their lives on it. But any who dare utter any criticism are regarded as pariahs.  There is so much gone awry in our politics in its widest form that in historical terms indicates a populist uprising of "us" against "them" is but a matter of "when" and not "if".

FAILING GRAYLING`S ROAD TO AUTHORITARIANISM

The current Lord Chancellor (how long will he remain in post) announced today that the probation service will in effect be re nationalised in 2021.  Thus another "innovation" of the worst of his predecessors and least effective cabinet minister of modern times bites the dust. The probation service pre Grayling was, in my area, a service teetering on the brink of failing those in whom the courts had placed their future hopes of offenders  leading a law abiding future life.  Virtually every group or organisation involved with the delivery of probation services advised Grayling of the pitfalls in his proposals. The due diligence and pilot projects reinforced those predictions but he continued like the proverbial bull crashing into all the china. Not satisfied with what would be a ruinous policy he proceeded to inflict more of his ill considered policies. He removed the rights of prisoners` having books in their cells. Books were to be allowed to prisoners only when they displayed good (compliant) behaviour. To his eternal shame he reduced by tens of £millions the legal aid budget and enforced severe financial cuts on the CPS. Perhaps these two decisions have contributed more than anything else to the calamitous state  of today`s justice system. Arguably his crowning glory was effecting the Criminal Courts Act in 2015 by which the imposition of court charges for all offenders irrespective of their ability to pay or original offence was so iniquitous IMHO that I retired shortly ahead of my allotted date so that I would not have to utter the pronouncement of said additional costs. His disastrous tenure at the MOJ was merely the latest in a line of questionable policies beginning in 2010 when the then Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clarke proudly announced in line with the austerity policies of the Coalition his forthcoming budget cut of 23% for the Ministry of Justice before any of his cabinet colleagues had announced theirs. Graylings lamentable period in his office was from 2012-2015.  Michael Gove who followed Grayling lasted in post for only one year but during that time he abolished the Criminal Courts Act and undid many of his predecessor`s actions re the prison service. From Clarke to Gauke ie from 2010 until the present time there have been six Secretaries of State for Justice.  Is it any wonder that our justice system is in terminal decline?    

The lamentable history above is but a microcosm of what has befallen this nation as a result of the Referendum; a device hastily thrown together to serve the interests only of the Conservative Party.  Grayling`s failings were all and I repeat all approved in cabinet. That miserable collection of incompetents for their own selfish reasons and laterally serving under the most incompetent personally unsuitable holder of the title of prime minister allowed the country to drift politically adrift from all reality.  Grayling as a hard Brexiteer was kept in Cabinet as Secretary of State for Transport where  currently he is continuing to demonstrate his complete and utter unsuitability for office.  Paradoxically his being there is final proof that the government has not only failed the country and its people; he has reduced confidence in the democratic norms we have taken for granted since 1945.  If this country tends to populism and subsequent authoritarianism a route from Grayling in 2012 until today can be directly traced as having nurtured the unthinkable. 

MAGISTRATES COURTS MUST RETAIN POWERS OF CUSTODY

There has been a flurry of announcements on social media particularly Twitter that the MOJ is seeking to abolish "short" prison sentences.  That is a press relations department`s way of talking up a ban on any magistrates court being enabled to send offenders to custody.  Instead any outcome would be of a financial or so called rehabilitative nature overseen presumably by some sort of probation service which owing to the incompetence of failing Grayling is utterly incapable of providing such a service.  Such is the way the iniquitous weasels at Petty France perform their duties. Despite the usual moaners and groaners who have been pressing for such changes in the powers of the lower courts for as long as I have been involved in such matters it is almost a dead certainty that their desires will be as pie in the sky in the next decade  as they have been in the past. 

To return to real life as it is lived in court this offender has been correctly treated as the law allows.  To all those in the aforesaid moaners and groaners camp please indicate how they would prefer such a miscreant be treated were custodial sentences to be prohibited in the lower court. 

2007-17 FINES AND MORE FINES

Today the MOJ released its latest batch of criminal justice statistics.  No doubt most major news outlets and commentators  will be giving their opinions on what they all mean and then the politicians will weigh in.  I cannot and will not compete with that but I can comment on just a snippet of information from the myriad of numbers below which can be seen more clearly with the Windows magnifier tool.  They cover the years 2007-2017

The inflation rate in the £ over those ten years was 31.89%. The average fine (top of table left) in 2007 was £172 and ten years later (top right of table) was £256; a rise of 49%.  At the other end of the scale for fines over £10,000 there were 276 offenders in 2007 and in 2017 such offenders receiving over £10,000 fines numbered 2695. That major increase seems to be a direct policy result of using fines as punishments in place of other outcomes. There is much to decipher in this table. Readers more acquainted with statistics might have their own knowledge and opinions.