Youth justice - court procedures
There are two main ways of being brought to
Court after having committed an offence:
- Being held in Police cells and produced for Court on
the next available day;
- Being released by the Police and Bailed to appear in
Court on a certain day. (If a young person does not attend court
when they have been bailed to do so, it is also an offence with
which they can be charged, so it is important to go to Court when
you are told to.)
There are three levels of criminal Courts in England and
Wales:
- Crown Court
- Magistrate's Court
- Youth Court
A young person will usually be seen by the Youth Court unless
the day they are to go to Court is not a Youth Court day (most
areas only run Youth Courts on certain days of the week).
If the young person appears on a day when there is no Youth
Court, they will be seen in adult court (Magistrate's). In this
case, the Magistrates will decide whether to send the case to the
Youth Court on another day, or to keep it in Magistrate's
Court.
If the young person is jointly charged with an adult, the
Magistrates will have to decide if the two defendants should be
kept together or if the adult should be dealt with in Magistrate's
Court, and the young person in Youth Court.
If the offence that the young person has been charged with is
serious enough, or if the adult they are charged with chooses to be
dealt with in Crown Court, the Magistrates can send the case there.
(In the case of serious crimes this is called a 'Committal'.)
The Rochdale Youth Offending Team works with young offenders
from anywhere in Rochdale from the age of 10-18 years.
If I have to go to Court?
If you have to go to Court the first thing a young person should
do when notified that they are to go to Court, is to get themselves
a Solicitor. As most young people cannot afford to pay for a
solicitor, they should be able to get legal aid, which will pay
these fees. If, by the time they get to Court, a young person still
does not have a solicitor, they should ask at the Court for the
duty solicitor, who will advise them.
When a young person arrives at the Court, they should first of
all find the Usher who is organising the Court schedule for that
day and inform them that they have arrived. If a young person is
late, or fails to attend, it is taken quite seriously and will
usually result in a Warrant for his or her arrest.
Young people should be careful to arrive in good time for their
appearance, and should attend with at least one of their parents,
or another appropriate adult (preferably a relative). The
Magistrates will expect a parent to be in attendance, and if no one
comes with a young person, the court may put the case off to a
later date and send a Summons for the parent to attend on the next
occasion. If the parent does not attend on the Summons date, the
Court can issue a Warrant for their arrest.
In the Court
Details of who else will be in the Court and what they do.
The Usher
The Usher is the person who keeps a note of which defendants are
present and which solicitor is representing them. They also decide
which order people will be seen in, and this usually depends on
Solicitors being available when the usher is ready to bring the
case before the Court.
The Clerk
The Clerk is a legally qualified person, whose job it is to
guide the Magistrates in matters of the law. Magistrates will
expect the Clerk to explain any points of law to them, and to help
with drawing up reasons for the decisions that they make about
young people.
The Prosecutor
The Prosecutor is a Solicitor who represents The Crown
Prosecution Service. He or she will usually speak first about the
young person, telling the Magistrates about the alleged offence.
(Remember - until a person pleads guilty or is found guilty at a
trial, they are innocent in the eyes of the Law!) The Prosecutor
will read from Police and witness statements when they tell the
Magistrates about offences, and will make them aware of any
previous convictions (but not until after a person is known to be
guilty).
The Defence
The Defence is the solicitor who acts for a person accused of a
crime. They will speak to the young person before going into Court,
so that they are aware of the circumstances of the offence. It is
important that solicitors know everything about any incidents, so
that they can respond to any issues raised in court.
The Youth Offending Service
The Youth Offending Service will have a representative in the
Youth Court to advise the Magistrates of any information that they
have about the young person. The Youth Offending Service
representative will inform the Court about a young person's
compliance with previous sentences and any risk issues relevant to
sentencing. They ensure young people are aware of the requirements
of Orders, make arrangements for assessment reports to be written
and in some circumstances produce 'Stand Down' reports for the
Court on the day of court. The person in Court will record court
processes and outcomes so that a young person's progress through
the Court system will be monitored.
The Magistrates
Last, but by no means least, are the Magistrates. Usually, the
Magistrates (known as the 'Bench') will be people from the local
community who have been asked to serve as Magistrates and to help
with the dispensing of justice. They are not lawyers, but have been
trained on how to be Magistrates by the Lord Chancellor's
Department. They have specific rules that they have to abide by,
and are guided through the process of dealing with offenders by a
Justice's manual (they will each have a copy of this book) and the
Court Clerk. There will usually be three Magistrates, but there can
be occasions when there are only two.
If there is only one Magistrate sitting in the Court, this
usually means that he or she is a 'District Judge' and is a legally
qualified person themselves, meaning that they can sit on their own
through the proceedings.
If you plead Guilty to an offence
If a young person pleads guilty, the Court has various options
open to them, depending on whether or not the young person has been
convicted before. If it is the first time that a young person has
appeared in court and they plead guilty, the Court has only four
options open to it:
- Absolute Discharge
- Hospital Order
- Referral Order
- Custody
If the Court decides to give a Referral Order, the sentence will
be made that day. If the Magistrates think the offence(s) are so
serious that a period of Custody (prison) is deserved, they will
put the case off for the Youth Offending Service to prepare reports
about the young person so that they can decide what sentence to
give.
If a young person pleading guilty has previous convictions, they
are not subject to the above rules. This means that the Court has
all of the sentencing option open to them. (How far up the
sentencing options the Magistrates can go is dependent on the
seriousness of the offence(s).)
If the Magistrates feel they can deal with the matter that day,
there are several things they can do, including a Conditional
Discharge, or a fine, or an Attendance Centre Order. If they feel
that a Reparation Order or Action Plan Order is more appropriate,
they can ask the member of the Youth Offending Service in court to
provide a 'Stand Down' report. This means that he or she will
interview the young person at court, and prepare a report on them
there and then allowing the Magistrates to sentence.
If the Magistrates want any other disposal, they will have to
put the matter off for two or three weeks for a full Pre Sentence
report to be prepared. This will be done by the Youth Offending
Service, and will require the young person to attend interviews so
that the report can be prepared in time for the next occasion in
court.
If you plead Not Guilty to an offence
In this case, the Defence and the Prosecution will probably ask
for the case to be adjourned for a Pre Trial Review. This is simply
a meeting between the two parties so that they can decide who they
want to appear as witnesses at a trial. Usually they do not need
the young person to attend court for these, but sometimes they do!
So a young person should make sure that they know whether or not
they are required for the next occasion.
At the actual Pre Trial Review, the Clerk of the Court will set
a date for the trial. The Defence solicitor will then send a letter
to the young person and their parents telling them when they have
to come back to court.
On the day of the Trial the defence witnesses will be kept
separate from the Prosecution Witnesses, and those who have been in
court to give their evidence will not be allowed to talk to the
people who have not yet done this. This is so that the next
witnesses cannot be warned about what is asked in the Court, as
this would prejudice their evidence.
Everyone who gives evidence at a Trial will be asked to promise
on The Bible that they will tell the truth, the whole truth, and
nothing but the truth. If people do not wish to promise in this
way, perhaps they are not particularly religious, they can affirm
that they will tell the truth. For people of other faiths, there is
the opportunity to promise in the manner that their faith allows
(for example, people of the Muslim faith can promise on the
Koran).
The Prosecution will start the trial by telling the Magistrates
what the Police say happened during the offence. They will question
the Witness that they are dealing with at the time, and then the
Defence will ask the questions that they want answered. Once this
is done, the Magistrates may also have questions to ask.
Once all of the Prosecution case has been laid, the Defence will
start their case by calling their list of witnesses. The process
above will be gone through again, but this time the defence gets to
start first.
When all of this process has been gone through, the Magistrates
will leave the Court to discuss all of the evidence that they have
heard and to decide whether or not the young person is guilty. If
they are found guilty, then the process described above for people
who have previous convictions will be followed. (People who are
found guilty are not subject to the rules about Referral Orders
etc).