NUMBERS ARE PLAYFUL ITEMS

Absolute discharge - no further action is taken, since either the offence was very minor or the court considers that the experience has been enough of a deterrent. The offender will receive a criminal record.   

The last decade can arguably be described as one in which the law has become increasingly prescriptive at the summary level.  In 2004 there were 530,847 offenders sentenced at magistrates` courts on non motoring offences of whom 4,507 received an absolute discharge; 0.85%.   Similar figures for the year ending June 2014 are 416,198 and 2,079 or 0.5%.  For motoring offences alone in 2004 of 704,836 sentenced 9,086 received an absolute discharge i.e. 1.3%.  Now ten years later the figures are that of 447,566 sentenced only 2,732 were given an absolute discharge; 0.6%.  I am no statistician but an absolute discharge rate for motoring offences which has decreased by a little over 50% seems significant.  Perhaps the interpretation of strict liability has tightened;  perhaps courts are less inclined to be benevolent.  Looking at the numbers above on non motoring sentencing it could possibly be construed that the CPS is more refined in its prosecuting policy and those cases which just reach its prosecution threshold are not now being pursued.

Numbers are playful items.  No wonder those involved in all aspects of the criminal justice system go to such lengths to find numbers which suit their political purposes.

GRAYLING TAKES JUSTICE INTO THE ABYSS

If the prize for the most efficient propaganda machine in Whitehall were measured by the number of lines published of (dis)information, “news” releases and “initiatives” those responsible at Petty France London SW1 would surely win. Now we are informed that those guilty of rebellious behaviour in prisons (now without the help of legal aid to argue their case)  are to be subject to increased  severity in punishments  notwithstanding the sacking of about a third of prison officers and the replacement of some of these by people of little experience and the consequent increase in the time prisoners are kept confined to their cells.  Enquiries are currently being carried out concerning the increased number of prison suicides and the efficiency or lack thereof at privately run penal establishments. The policies of this so called justice administration are passing from the merely bizarre and economising to the demonic.  Judges, lawyers, probation service, prison service and even magistrates have expressed their opposition to Grayling who continues before our almost incomprehensible  unbelieving eyes to take our once admirable justice system into the abyss from which there is no recovery in sight.

THE NEW ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOUR RULES: PART 7 DISPERSAL POWERS

Read the report in CRP News and wonder just how much authority is being given to a single police officer in this fair land.

DRIVEN TO DESPAIR

It never fails to amaze how many people feel that if they ignore official communications somehow they will go away and the tidings within will be forever unable to come back and hit them where it hurts.  So it is with much of the process at motoring courts.  We had five s.172s.  One defendant managed to convince us that he had indeed returned the form with the errant driver named only for the recipient police department to deny receipt.  One might consider that the boot was well and truly on the other foot. One other had sufficient evidence that he was not in a position to have received the notice to nominate.  The remaining defendants had, for a variety of reasons, failed to persuade us that they had not received their s.172 forms and were duly convicted one of whom with six penalty points already on her license was immediately made subject to six months disqualification her legal advisor assisted plea of exceptional hardship falling far short of any reasonable hurdle.   We also had an ambulance driver before us for driving the wrong way in a "one way" street.  This is virtually a strict liability offence and although he was on an emergency run to a hospital we had to convict him after persuading him that his defence was not tenable.  I blogged on this topic last year. After explaining the situation to him we gave him an absolute discharge and no costs but the atrocious so called "victims` surcharge" had to be paid.   Being in an area where there are large numbers of immigrants from the E.U. the problem imposed on our courts a year or two ago by a European Directive  that such license holders did not have to convert to a U.K. license is a regular occurrence.  We just do not know their driving history.  I suppose it could be worse; if we don`t know they could be  convicted murderers when they arrive here what difference in reality would a conviction or two for careless or dangerous driving make?

LEGAL AID REFUSAL OVERTURNED

The denial of legal aid in many criminal cases as a result of deliberate government intention is a blot on the justice landscape for which many will never forgive the Tories.  It is therefore pleasing to see even occasionally this atrocious policy being found to be beyond the pale.  A report in the Law Society Gazette is worth a glance.