SCANDAL OF UNPAID FINES BY POOREST IN SOCIETY

It is probably fair to say that generally but not exclusively it is the poorest in our society who appear before us for non payment of fare on public transport whether it be the Metro in Newcastle, a tram in Manchester or the Tube in London. Each transport authority has its own policy on when or if it instructs its inspectors to issue a penalty fare of c£50 to be paid at 50% if paid within 14 or 21 days. Those cases not falling within that bracket are usually summonsed to court if they have been unable to provide a reasonable and acceptable explanation for their non payment. When there is a suspected fraud eg using someone else`s ticket a summons is the only outcome.

In my experience very few attend court in person, perhaps two or three out of a list of forty or fifty cases, and only perhaps a maximum of nine or ten will return the paperwork with an admission of guilt and a statement of their means. Those offenders will generally be given full benefit for their guilty plea and will be fined according to their means. The remainder will be found guilty on the facts presented unless there is an obvious flaw in the evidence submitted and fined according to the relative weekly income for the area concerned. The maximum will be for London courts where the RWI is considered as £410/week. Fine levels will usually be up to a week`s income depending on the actual charge. If there have been previous offences of a similar nature there will be a loading of the fine to reflect this behaviour.

All this is neat and tidy but for many it remains a paper exercise. Depriving the poorest in society of what little cash they have is a pointless exercise. What such unfortunates do have is time on their hands. Surely imposing some form of work in the community makes more sense than setting them up to be unable to pay a financial obligation to the state. In the neat and tidy tick box sentencing culture imposed upon all sentencers work in the community is unable to be imposed until an offence which has been committed is serious enough for that threshold to have been crossed.

Currently around £1 - £2 billion {the numbers vary according to the sources}  of unpaid fines are floating in the ether. Whatever new attempts are made to collect it is unlikely that much of this amount and newly imposed fines will ever be collected. The sanctions against non payers are so rarely imposed, or of more import, able to be imposed that the system is beyond recovery. Many states in America have simple procedures for imprisoning wilful non payers according to the outstanding amounts. But as increased prison accommodation and the will to utilise such accommodation is nowhere to be found in this or any likely future government the non payers can laugh all the way out of court.

There must be out of the box thinking on how the state is going to impose sufficient persuasion so that the scandal of unpaid fines is consigned to the same history as rotten boroughs, child labour or transportation to the colonies.

M.O.J. EVADES F.O.I. ANSWERS

On 29th December last year I posted on the fact that new categories of assault in the context of domestic violence came into being without there being any statistics to validate their being enacted. Of course there is still no dedicated offence of "domestic violence".  Defendants are prosecuted under the various degrees of assault on the statute book.  With the prime minister in his recent speech on the subject describing how the incarceration of ever more offenders must stop it would have been thought that the efficiency and terms of the probation service and the study of increasing use of custody suspended would be a matter of priority.  As all interested parties now know (and many predicted)  the current state of what was once a tolerably efficient national organisation has been emasculated by the arrogance, unthinking and discredited actions of Chris Grayling the most ill fitted and catastrophic Lord Chancellor in living memory.  Having offenders allowed to remain in society with a threat that breach of their custody suspended sentences will point them towards their local prison puts a heavy responsibility on that emasculated profession and its reduced workforce.  It would therefore be thought that a coherent policy on actions to be taken against those who do indeed breach the conditions of their get out of jail not quite free card would be of prime consideration both to sentencers and probation.  That thought would be mistaken. In circumstances such as custodial sentencing,  historical statistics are a major part of the socio political arguments being argued by Cameron and other interested parties.  Punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation and public protection are all part of the sentencing mix. Suspending a period of imprisonment falls mainly into the deterrence basket with some  rehabilitative input and to validate the involved and impending processes, efficiency in such sentencing, one would have thought, would be essential. Those processes should involve knowledge of the numbers of offenders breaching suspended sentence orders and their sentences as a consequence being activated whole or in part.  By the grace of the Freedom of Information Act which some in government wish to restrict, may they rot in hell, such questions were recently asked to which in brief the answer was....we don`t collect such statistics in any simple straightforward cost effective format.  Considering all the information the M.O.J. does collect about courts, outcomes, times taken, sentencing etc etc it is rather odd that numbers which this observer at least (and no doubt many others) considers of some importance are not collected in a similar format thus enabling forensic analysis. Perhaps this failure is  not by ommission but by commission.

The  response of the MOJ is copied below.

Freedom of Information Request

Dear ***********,

Thank you for your email of ***********  20**, in which you ask for the following information from the Ministry of Justice (MoJ):

For the last five years how many suspended sentence orders have been made by magistrates` courts in actual numbers and as a percentage of all custodial orders?

For the last five years how many of these SSOs as above have been breached and resulted in the activation in whole or part of these orders in actual numbers and as a percentage of all SSOs

Your request has been handled under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FOIA).

I can confirm that the Ministry of Justice holds the information that you have asked for. However, because the cost of complying with your request would exceed the limit set by the Freedom of Information Act, on this occasion I'm afraid I will not be taking your request further. In this letter I explain why that is the case and I also provide you with some advice as to how you could refine your request so that we may be able to answer it.

The law allows us to decline to answer FOI requests when we estimate it would cost us more than £600 (equivalent to 3½ working days’ worth of work, calculated at £25 per hour) to identify, locate, extract, and then provide the information that has been asked for.

It may help if I explain that the Ministry of Justice Court Proceedings Database holds information on defendants proceeded against, found guilty and sentenced for criminal offences in England and Wales. This database holds information on offences provided by the statutes under which proceedings are brought but not all the specific circumstances of each case. This centrally held information does not allow us to separately identify breaches of suspended sentence orders. This detailed information is not reported to Justice Statistics Analytical Services due to its size and complexity.

In this instance, to provide you with the information, we would be required to contact all Magistrates’ courts in England and Wales and ask them to search individual case files where a suspended sentence order was given to ascertain how many orders were breached.  To collect and collate the information you require on the scale you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ set out in Section 12(1) of the FOIA.

You can find out more about Section 12(1) by reading the extract from the Act and some guidance points we consider when applying this exemption, attached at the end of this letter.

You can also find more information by reading the full text of the Act, available at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/12.

Whilst you could narrow the scope of your request in order to try and bring it within the cost limit, for example by requesting information for a particular court, I would like to take this opportunity to advise you that it is very likely that any information that may be held within scope of your request may be exempt from disclosure under the FOIA under the terms of Section 32 (Court Records). Therefore it is likely that any subsequent narrowed request could be refused under Section 32.

However, outside the scope of the Act and on a discretionary basis  I am pleased to inform you that you can view data on suspended sentences given at Magistrates ‘ courts via the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/criminal-justice-system-statistics-quarterly-december-2014

Select and open “Magistrates’ court data tool” folder

You will be able to view the number of suspended sentences given at Magistrates’ court in England and Wales, from 2004 to 2014. The percentage of suspended sentence orders can be calculated by dividing the number of suspended sentence orders by the number of custodial sentences and then multiplying by 100.

You can also find more information by reading the full text of the Act, available at http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2000/36/section/21 and further guidance http://www.justice.gov.uk/information-access-rights/foi-guidance-for-practitioners/exemptions-guidance

I am sorry that on this occasion I have not been able to answer your request. You have the right to appeal our decision if you think it is incorrect. Details can be found in the ‘How to Appeal’ section attached at the end of this letter.

Disclosure Log

​

You can also view information that the Ministry of Justice has disclosed in response to previous Freedom of Information requests. Responses are anonymised and published on our on-line disclosure log which can be found on the MoJ website:

http://www.justice.gov.uk/information-access-rights/foi-requests/latest-moj-disclosure-log

​

The published information is categorised by subject area and in alphabetical order

Yours sincerely

Giovanni Barbuti

Justice Statistics Analytical Services

How to Appeal

Internal Review

If you are not satisfied with this response, you have the right to an internal review. The handling of your request will be looked at by someone who was not responsible for the original case, and they will make a decision as to whether we answered your request correctly.

If you would like to request a review, please write or send an email to the Data Access and Compliance Unit within two months of the date of this letter, at the

following address:

Data Access and Compliance Unit (10.34),

Information & Communications Directorate,

Ministry of Justice,

102 Petty France,

London

SW1H 9AJ

E-mail: xxxx.xxxxxx@xxxxxxx.xxx.xxx.xx

Information Commissioner’s Office

If you remain dissatisfied after an internal review decision, you have the right to apply to the Information Commissioner’s Office. The Commissioner is an independent regulator who has the power to direct us to respond to your request differently, if he considers that we have handled it incorrectly.

You can contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at the following address:

Information Commissioner’s Office,

Wycliffe House,

Water Lane,

Wilmslow,

Cheshire

SK9 5AF

Internet address: https://www.ico.gov.uk/Global/contact_us.aspx

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ABOUT SECTION 12(1)

We have provided below additional information about Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. We have included some extracts from the legislation, as well as some of the guidance we use when applying it. We hope you find this information useful.

The legislation

Section 1: Right of Access to information held by public authorities

(1) Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled—

(a)        to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request, and

(b)        if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him.

Section 12: Cost of compliance exceeds appropriate limit

(1) Section 1(1) does not oblige a public authority to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the appropriate limit.

(2) Subsection (1) does not exempt the public authority from its obligation to comply with paragraph (a) of section 1(1) unless the estimated cost of complying with that paragraph alone would exceed the appropriate limit.

(3) In subsections (1) and (2) “the appropriate limit” means such amount as may be prescribed, and different amounts may be prescribed in relation to different cases.

(4) The Secretary of State may by regulations provide that, in such circumstances as may be prescribed, where two or more requests for information are made to a public authority—

(a)        by one person, or

(b)        by different persons who appear to the public authority to be acting in concert or in pursuance of a campaign,

the estimated cost of complying with any of the requests is to be taken to be the estimated total cost of complying with all of them.

(5) The Secretary of State may by regulations make provision for the purposes of this section as to the costs to be estimated and as to the manner in which they are to be estimated.

Guidance

The appropriate limit

The 'appropriate limit', for the purposes of section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act has been set at:

• £600 for central government and Parliament.
• The hourly rate is set at £25 per person per hour.

The following activities may be taken into account when public authorities are estimating whether the appropriate limit has been exceeded.

• determining whether it holds the information requested
• locating the information or documents containing the information
• retrieving such information or documents
• extracting the information from the document containing it.

 

EXPLANATION OF FOIA - SECTION 32 – COURT RECORDS

We have provided below additional information about Section 32 of the Freedom of Information Act. We have included some extracts from the legislation, as well as some of the guidance we use when applying it. We hope you find this information useful.

The legislation

Section 1: Right of Access to information held by public authorities

(1) Any person making a request for information to a public authority is entitled—

(a)        to be informed in writing by the public authority whether it holds information of the description specified in the request, and

(b)        if that is the case, to have that information communicated to him.

Section 32: Information held by virtue of being contained within court records

(1) Information held by a public authority is exempt information if it is held only by virtue of being contained in—

(a)        any document filed with, or otherwise placed in the custody of, a court for the purposes of   proceedings in a particular cause or matter,

(b)        any document served upon, or by, a public authority for the purposes of proceedings in a particular cause or matter, or

(c)        any document created by—

(i)         a court, or

(ii)        a member of the administrative staff of a court,

for the purposes of proceedings in a particular cause or matter.

(2) Information held by a public authority is exempt information if it is held only by virtue of being contained in—

(a)        any document placed in the custody of a person conducting an inquiry or arbitration, for the purposes of the inquiry or arbitration, or

(b)        any document created by a person conducting an inquiry or arbitration, for the purposes of the inquiry or arbitration.

Guidance

Section 32 exempts information contained in those litigation documents and court, tribunal and inquiry records to which it applies. It exempts information held by a public authority if it is held solely by virtue of its being contained in those categories of document.

The information must be included in a particular type of document and must be held by the public authority only by virtue of this. However, if the information is so held, it will be exempt regardless of its content and for the reasons set out below public authorities should refuse the request. This applies both to the document itself and to any copies of that document or copies of the information which it contains.

There are separate and specific regimes for access to information held by courts and tribunals, designed to give those bodies themselves a measure of control over that information. For example, Rule 5.4 of the Civil Procedure Rules deals with access to court documents in civil proceedings in the county courts, the High Court and the Court of Appeal. It allows any person, on payment of the prescribed fee, to inspect and take a copy of (a) a claim form which has been served, (b) a judgment or order given or made in public, and (c) any other document if the court gives permission. Where a person has the right to inspect a document without permission, a request can be made to the court staff. Where permission is required, an application must be made to a judge. The Civil Procedure Rules do not include any guidance on the court's exercise of its discretion but the court will take account of all the circumstances of the case and the competing principles of open justice and the right to privacy of persons who may be mentioned in court documents.

MORE COURT CLOSURES

By now most readers will probably be aware of the government`s decision for another wholesale closure of magistrates` courts.  This was perfectly predictable.  This Chancellor who controls ministry budgets has shown for some time that he picks off these targets easiest to hit an example being the infamous "pasty tax" in 2013 which was hurriedly withdrawn.  The principle underlying the bedroom tax might have some cogent arguments in its favour but its implementation took no prisoners and has led to much ill will from some natural Tory supporters. The scandals of those whose disability allowance has been arbitrarily reduced or withdrawn have played eagerly into the hands of the Opposition.  But the closure of courts is a different matter.  Most people have not had any contact with the legal system.  The arguments against closure especially for those courts in rural districts are unchanged.  The facile statement that 97% of court attenders will be able to reach their nearest court within one hour`s travel by car is just another sign of the arrogance of those who rule us.   My experience tells me that a large but apparently unquantifiable number of court attendees travel by public transport.  In a city they  might be within one hour of the court but a brief look at the map of inter alia North West England, Devon and Cornwall or central and North Wales tells a different story for public transport. It cannot now be denied that the mantra of local J.P.s for local justice is now consigned to history despite the protestations of those whose view of the situation is coloured by their rose tinted spectacles. Already one magistrate has told his local media of his resignation from the bench owing to his court being one designated for closure.  Others will surely follow.  This will be a source of satisfaction for those in Petty France. 10,000 J.P.s have gone in ten years; only another 19,000 to go.........literally.

NOTE TAKING IN COURT

An essential part of the remit of a winger on the bench is to be on the lookout for any untoward activity in the court, particularly in the public gallery.  Such activities would include hostile actions or apparent threats or advice to a witness, talking, use of camera or mobile phone etc etc.  One action that should not cause a bench member any concern is that of an individual, wherever s/he might be sitting in the courtroom, taking notes.  Apparently a crown court judge in 2014 thought differently. HHJ Crowther QC at Cardiff Crown Court threatened a note taker with being in contempt of court. Recently the decision of the Divisional Court decided that in general terms open justice  must be the default position.  

This should be ingrained in the grey matter of all J.P.s particularly those who take the middle chair.  Legal advisors who often take the most conservative position available on controversial matters should also take note.