The Justice of the Peace [magistrate`s] Blog:

One would have thought that a document issued today on behalf of The Rt Hon Nick Clegg MP, Nick Hurd MP and Jeremy Wright MP with the word “reforms” in its title would at least have had the spelling of the word “REFORMS” correct. One would have been mistaken.

It seems to this blogger that commentary on the document is unnecessary. Read it for yourself and see if you agree.

Magistrates are unpaid volunteers. Most, in my experience, value their independence. Most would not be willing to accept payment in lieu of that independence. Many (most?) echo my own view that Her Majesty`s Courts and Tribunal Service in its dealings with magistrates considers us as unpaid employees. In other words that we are as pawns on the justice chessboard to be manoeuvred at the whim of those civil servants; all 26 of them, known as Justices` Clerks. Indeed I have heard tell of such an official telling an annual bench meeting of J.P.s what it can and cannot debate. Be that as it may it seems that that attitude is spreading to other organisations within our justice system.

A colleague who spies for me in another part of the country has been invited with his bench colleagues to one or all of a series of meetings sponsored by one of the newly established Pay By Results organisations now running probation services. Nothing odd about that and even refreshments are being offered as an inducement. The fly in this innocuous ointment is that the meetings are all scheduled to begin at 8.45a.m. Now for employed individuals in an organisation this is perfectly reasonable timetabling in bringing knowledge up to date but we are not employees. Many, including myself in past years, have the school run or other obligations early morning. Those (the majority) in full time employment already in many instances must negotiate their sitting time with employers who are showing increasing reluctance in these straightened times to sanction additional time off. Those who are already rota`d to sit on these mornings will decide if they wish to commit to a lengthened day and an earlier rise. Some will and some will not. For the remainder whose leisure time will be subject to further imposition attendance figures will tell all.

This radical innovation has been initiated without any prior consultation with members of the bench. One would have thought that a simple on line questionnaire to elicit opinion on timetabling such gatherings would have been time well spent by organisations whose watchword is profit. Indeed the cost of such an exercise would be virtually zero. Perhaps this is also an exercise in power and control. After all if J.P.s can be shunted around in this manner at this time future authority will come easy. If this training breakfast results in a dismal turn out the penny will have dropped: treat us like donkeys or mules and we will be just as stubborn as those four legged creatures.

There are some aspects of a society that seem for many to define that society. Swiss trains always run on time; indeed they run like clockwork. Denmark and the Danes could be regarded as tolerant, easygoing, polymorphously perverse, and crazy about bicycles. German industry is so efficient; German cars continue to be in demand as their price rises. French have been described as cheese eating surrender monkeys which is as inaccurate as describing the Irish as drunken navvies although it perhaps could be argued that there are historical precedents for these derogatory opinions. Take almost any country in the world and there will be a national stereotype to be admired and others to be disparaged. A stereotypical criticism of England could be that its streets are always full of litter. And who`s to argue the inaccuracy of that observation? I have posted here and here on litter.

Generally The Clean Neighbourhoods and Environment Act 2005 which came into force on 7th June 2005 is the vehicle empowering local councils to issue fixed penalty notices of £50 for those who transgress. c30,000 such notices were issued in the year ended March 2009. For those who do not pay the fine a summons from the local magistrates` courts is the next step in enforcement. The offender is brought to court for non payment of the fine; not for the original offence and can decide to plead guilty and offer what mitigation s/he can resulting in court costs, victim surcharge and a fine not exceeding £2,500 calculated according to her/his means and previous offending (if any) of a similar nature. For those who deny the offence a trial will be scheduled where the defendant can argue her/his case fully protected by legal procedures. Convictions after trial do not enjoy fines` discounts offered to those pleading guilty.

But all too often, as with minor motoring offences, offenders ignore all correspondence in the hope, rarely materialising, that the matter will just go away. And that was how, presumably, Aaron Wilkinson was fined £600 plus £182.50 costs by Nottingham Magistrates’ Court. No doubt this gentleman will be angry and astonished when he receives the notice of what he owes the court. £782 is indeed an outrageous penalty which resulted from careless disposal of litter which could have been settled for £50 if he`d paid the FPN. If he continues to sit on his hands he will receive a visit from bailiffs employed by Her Majesty`s Courts and Tribunal Service. The final step in sagas such as this is the summons for an appearance at a means court where he will be subject to an investigation of his financial status. About 100 fine defaulters are imprisoned annually on the basis of wilful refusal to pay or culpable neglect. There are some who would argue that imprisonment for non payment of a fine is an injustice in itself and a disgraceful outcome in a society which considers itself benevolent and operating an enlightened justice system. That argument could be sustained by the fact that c£2 million is outstanding in non payment of fines, costs, compensation etc. There is virtually no likelihood that that amount will ever be recovered although the fines “current account” is perhaps succeeding in preventing an increase in that figure. My own experience was posted here earlier this month.

With a general aversion to courts` imprisoning defaulters and the huge hurdle in place for that purpose in my opinion the only viable way to encourage people like the aforementioned Mr Wilkinson to meet his obligations is for there to be sanctions which can reasonably be employed where required eg unpaid work in the community. However with the enormous changes being imposed upon the probation service I see little likelihood of that happening.

We are forever being assured by those in control that the institution of the magistracy will continue to be valued. What we are not told is the manner in which that value will be demonstrated. Whether criminal activity is actually reducing or the various statistical analyses make it appear so, judicial activity in the magistrates` courts is reducing as is the number of magistrates. In the last ten years there has been a 10% increase in the combined number of District and Deputy District Judges from 278 to 308. These are salaried civil servants whose full time equivalent basic gross pay is £102,000. There were 24,267 J.P.s at the last count but in 2008 there were 29,419; a reduction of 17% in just five years. Thus government in the last decade has considered it a viable proposition to increase its wage bill even although all the latest outcomes show that unpaid magistrates working at admittedly slightly slower rates cost less. So! less crime, more District Judges (inc. DDJs) and fewer J.P.s can indicate only one conclusion; namely that government is directing us to be less involved in the criminal courts system and shuffling a rump of J.P.s to such diversions as neighbourhood councils and lower tiers of so called community justice. Confirmation of such long distance intentions has been reinforced for me at least by information from a colleague who sits in another county.

When her court was amalgamated the previous allocation of 0.5 DJ for the single court was increased to 1.00 although there was little prospect of an increased workload. The newly combined bench had now a complement of two DJs. Therefore 25% more work must be provided to keep him busy , after all he is being paid £2,000+ a week which means courts formally assigned to the lay bench are assigned to him. Analysis apparently seems to show that with the prevailing guidance in fact only 1.4 DJs are needed. I understand that representations are being made to senior judicial figures to have DJ attendance reduced. I would suggest that such manoeuvrings must be going on in many judicial areas where these recently employed DJs and Deputies are ensconced.

If a government wants the country`s citizens to be convicted and sentenced by a single state employee for all summary and some either way matters as is currently the case with trial by a District Judge sitting alone, so be it. But the continuing obfuscation about intentions is not befitting those who profess in public to be proud of our system of summary criminal justice by the citizen peers of those in the dock before them. If the ultimate destination of the magistracy in its current form is the end of the road let it be admitted.

At a time when the government has assigned police to conduct their own traffic prosecutions in newly designated dedicated traffic courts an interesting debate was yesterday held in the House of Commons: Road Traffic Offences (Sentencing).

It has long been my opinion that many major decisions on cause/effect, what works/what doesn`t work, in judicial, police or social services areas of expertise are the very opposite of expertise; they are as whimsical as womens` fashions or the latest downloads from Apple. Prison works! Does it? "Short, sharp shock" treatment at detention centres for young criminals (advertised as part of the 1979 Conservative Party Manifesto) Police killers will be given life long imprisonment. Prison is inhumane. And so the list goes on adinfinitum. And so the whole process swings to and fro just as does the pendulum.

A decade prior to my appointment as a J.P. the Crown Prosecution Service was established to take over the prosecution process from police who had been doing the job since the mid 1800s. And in a few months they will be doing it again. A couple of days ago before an audience of police officers Theresa May announced that police would take over the prosecution of low level thieves who admit their guilt. A penny will get you a pound if this change in the prosecution pendulum`s direction does not herald an increase in the cases over which police will have discretion to by pass the CPS. It is, however, rather difficult to square this change with the revelation that the Metropolitan Police, literally so often a law unto itself, is apparently out of control insofar as the issue of cautions is concerned.

With even the most casual public commentators prefacing many remarks on crime and disorder with the observation that reducing crime figures are open to question and the law `n order debate being reported in increasingly larger type and louder voices perhaps the emasculation of the justice system has reached its maximum and the pendulum is about to repeat its reverse cycle once again.

I`m not the Home Secretary`s greatest fan but indicating today to an audience of police officers that the murder of one of their number will bring retribution of a whole life sentence is to be applauded.

The release of Huhne and ex wife two months into eight month sentences makes a mockery of the current system. Why have minutely tabulated, almost formulaic Sentencing Guidelines, when the coach and horses of early release at the behest of prison authorities et al ride roughshod over the whole process?

I first commented on the scandal of unpaid fines 22/02/2010. I last commented three years later on 25/02/2013 with a few more posts in between. Not so long ago I sat in the “means court” for the first time in about a year and only then did I fully realise the scale of the problem. It is down purely and simply to the gross mismanagement of the whole fines` system; from the imposition by a court to the hearing at which a defaulter is brought to the means court to explain why a fine or part thereof remains unpaid.

All the parts of the system are in disharmony eg the victim surcharge cannot be recorded within part of the system as a separate entity and is lumped in with the fine. Another part of the system cannot separately record costs and these too are somehow added on to other outstanding figures or so I have been informed. Fines from different courts cannot always be associated with the same offender. Payments of fines do not always reach the required account. Offenders can therefore have different accounts simultaneously. Payments deducted from earnings or welfare benefits at source can stop for various reasons without the knowledge of the offender. Although magistrates` courts have powers to remit (alter, reduce) outstanding fines if there is a change in the offenders` circumstances or lodge(eliminate) fines owing from those imprisoned they have no powers to alter decisions originally made at the Crown Court without express authorisation from that court.

Considering the above and the reluctance of the powers that be to install a meaningful deterrent within the fines system or to signal a total overhaul of the data collection system that will allow control of the process and real knowledge in real time it is unsurprising that the system is in such a chaotic state. Instead of worshipping at the alter of payment by results to reduce re-offending where the “results” are wide open to “interpretation” the Ministry should apply PBR where results will be as clear as a penalty shootout in the Champions League. If £Xmillion is spent to create a system which recovers £Ymillion in fines etc and Y>X it wouldn`t take an Einstein to determine if savings have been made and at what cost/£.

I suppose it`s alright for a simple blogger to make suggestions. After all doesn`t any government employ the brightest people to sort out problems?

Remember the good old days when London had black cabs? Those were the days; none of the gaudiness of New York`s yellow monsters nor the assortment of transport taking passengers for suicide rides in Paris or Rome. The capital also had red double decker buses with conductors collecting fares and controlling good natured but sometimes rowdy passengers. Hail a taxi in London and it`s not unlikely to be painted red, yellow, white or any other shade thought to attract parcel laden tourists on a winter`s evening in Oxford Street. However not satisfied with removing the colour bar cab owners now rent their vehicles` bodies for the highest price whether it`s to a brand of travel company or hair shampoo. In a still just about free capitalist society such enterprise can be excused unless the black cab brand itself is sold off along with the red pillar and telephone boxes but what about colour co-ordinated police cars?

TV programmes in the police genre based upon the 1950s and 60s are increasingly popular. Perhaps they stir memories of a gentler era where much went unsaid and hypocrisy was de rigueur. Certainly police cars lacked the luminescent tape and illumination like a Christmas tree. All round black paint, a single blue lamp and a hee haw siren were the rule. Times, they are always changin` but have they changed so much that police cars should sport a commercial logo as do the aforementioned taxis? The Police and Crime Commissioner for Dorset is seeking to maximise income for his hard pressed force of cops by renting the local police cars and vans as mobile advertising sites just as those London cabbies have been doing for some years. The mind boggles. Local fast food outlets might be interested...”fastest deliveries in Dorset”....or....”try our blue light delivery service”. The idea might be contagious. Take courtrooms as an example: remove the Royal coat of arms and replace it with “Juicy Justice, Fast, Fair and Finger Lickin` Good” with the appropriate figure of an old southern gentleman. The sentencing guidelines could be sponsored by a well known store group and have at the header of each page, “Never knowingly undersentenced”. That could surely bring in a few pounds. All magistrates` sentencing pronouncements could be required to end with the words “You know it makes sense”. After all it helped the government of the day promote the wearing of seatbelts. Similarly when a fine is pronounced and the offender is informed of the making of a collection order the final phrase to be added could be, “Every Little Helps”. And in the case of an error in a pronouncement followed by a speedy apology the bench chairman could be mandated to say, “Should`ve gone to Specsavers”.

After all when the Justice budget is being cut as if by a blind farmer with an out of control combined harvester surely all ideas of maximising revenue are saving you money every day because change happenz, it does what it says on the wall and it`s so good we put our name on it?

Under the government`s camouflage of obtaining value for money in our justice system many slices of salami have been removed from the roll of product pressed against the rotary blade of austerity. The latest changes to the availability and provision of legal aid are just another cut in the body of justice which might not yet be dying but is certainly far from being in robust health. The newest piece of sticking plaster that the Justice Secretary has produced to shore up the tsunami of criticism which has been levelled against him from all quarters is his announcement that all those released from a prison sentence will undergo a year`s supervision. In the year to September 2012 34,593 offenders were sentenced to immediate custody not exceeding three months[pp57]. These people would generally serve half their sentence in the community. In 2006 7,398 offenders were sentenced to a maximum of one month`s immediate custody. They would have included fine defaulters, drunk and/or disqualified drivers and persistent thieves offending to feed their addiction(s). There will be no filtering. All such offenders will be under the wing of Serco, Group 4 or other new “partner” in probation for 12 months being paid by results. The underlying problems of such offenders are generally drink and/or drugs. They impoverish those addicted, destroy family relationships and remove any desire to self reform. They are medical/health orientated conditions which our society is not prepared to remove from the prison system and, with the required legislation and input of capital, transfer to the N.H.S.

From Kenneth Clarke to Chris Grayling; Get out of jail free, do not pass Go, do not collect £200. Perhaps from the sublime to the ridiculous is more appropriate.