BIND OVERS// A REMINDER OF TIMES PAST

A bind over is a power that is available to magistrates but I doubt if more than a handful of JPs have made use of it.  The courts and of course the legislators have been smitten with the myriad of banning orders or similar which have multiplied this century like fruit flies in a jam jar. Binding over orders are a civil disposal available in the Criminal Courts and can, in the right circumstances, provide an effective means of dealing with low-level disorder. In summary, they act as a means of postponing a sentence on conditions.  Although a bind over isn't a criminal conviction  it will show on enhanced DBS checking so for many professionals it would have to be explained to an appropriate authority.  The Justices of the Peace Act 1361 permitted a justice of the peace to bind over people who disturbed the peace to provide recognisance to ensure their future good conduct.  The CPS guidance on bind over is available here. 

My first experience of a bind over was when I did an observation prior to being appointed.  A young man had brought a private prosecution against his flatmate for assault.  The flatmate countered in court with his own accusation of assault. The justice presiding, in what I considered then a very condescending manner,  proceeded to drawl to the plaintiff that unless both parties withdrew their actions they would both be bound over for a year on the  recognisance of a charge of £100 to be paid.  The plaintiff  withdrew the accusation and the matter ended. To this day I am of the opinion that that bench failed to apply the process in accordance with the law.  Others might differ. In my personal experience there was but a single occasion when a bind over was the outcome. Despite researches I can find no statistics  on how often a bind over was the outcome at magistrates courts for 2022 or any other year. 

Today, however, I can report that a bind over was the disposal by magistrates in the Channel Islands.  They might be outside the UK but even then in this case I would opine that this was a very loose application of the suitability of such a sentence. 

Will such legislation last until its 700th year of application to the laws of England?  If pushed I will state that with a government pushing out banning orders like a chicken pushing out eggs it is likely to wither on the vine like so many ancient traditions some admittedly more decoration than functional. Perhaps like the House of Lords its usefulness will be soon a distant reminder of times past.