When the Conservatives created the Single Justice Procedure in 2014/15, they said 'trust us', everything will be done fairly, you don't need open court hearings.

How's that going? Unlawful prosecutions against children

standard.co.uk/news/uk/single…

A 90-year-old housebound pensioner is convicted of not keeping up with his car insurance.

He doesn't have email, struggles to walk, can't write anymore & cares for a wife with dementia

In our flawed, secretive, fast-track justice system, this kind of prosecution keeps happening Anyone prosecutor with a heart would read that letter & say perhaps a criminal case can be avoided.

But as we now know, prosecutors in the Single Justice Procedure usually don't read these letters. At all. On this point, the system is fundamentally broken
standard.co.uk/news/uk/single…

You join me in a busy magistrates court, waiting for a Met Police officer to appear on rape charges.

Most people won't set foot in a courtroom like this. It's chaotic at times, the cases are varied, and justice is served.

Here's what I'm listening to: First into the dock is a trainee chiropractor, 21, who pushed two police officers as they tried to arrest his brother.
Facing charges of assaulting emergency workers.

He pleads guilty, after his lawyer asked the CPS to deal with the incident out of court with a caution.

A woman, 78, hadn’t paid her car insurance.
She was prosecuted after not paying a DVLA fixed penalty notice.
£40 fine, £100 costs & a £16 victim surcharge. So far, not very interesting.
But look at the guilty plea & recoil in horror that any magistrate convicted her at all… Her daughter wrote to the court.
Her mum has schizophrenia, dementia, & Alzheimer’s.
She broke her ankle in March, was taken to hospital, and is now in care.
She & her brother are dealing with her affairs: “Both at breaking point”, she said.
And the magistrate still convicted.

Before magistrates grant powers allowing councils to send in bailiffs, should they scrutinise and actually look at the evidence?

Last week, I saw magistrates at a London court approve Council Tax liability orders for 2205 households in just 9 minutes and 40 seconds. The fine reporting of @deankirby_ on the pre-payment meter scandal got me wondering about other court processes done on a batch basis, rather than individually.

https://twitter.com/deankirby_/status/1599753108342550528?s=20&t=dn7yfRs0PaNGLAbRqqosBA

Criminal court trials that could not happen because there was no prosecutor.

2021:
Quarter 1 - 35
Q2 - 48
Q3 - 87
Q4 - 98

2022:
Q1 - 135
Q2 - 72
Q3 - 83

Between 2014 and end of 2020, previous high was 71.

This is a growing problem. In the Crown Courts, the increase is sharp:

2021:
Q1 - 9
Q2 - 11
Q3 - 39
Q4 - 68

2022:
Q1 - 98
Q2 - 51
Q3 - 38

Law Society Lubna Shuja tells the Commons Justice Select Committee she doesn't believe government understands the crisis in criminal legal aid.

"We don't think ministers are taking this seriously", she said. "They don't understand how serious the crisis is." She tells MPs a Dec 21 independent review said criminal legal aid was in a "parlous" state and recommended an urgent 15 per cent increase in fees.

Solicitors have been offered a 9 per cent increase on average, including 4 per cent for Crown Court litigation prep.

Did COVID lockdown laws penalise the most vulnerable in our society?

Surely a question the Covid Inquiry will tackle, whenever it happens.

For now, a snapshot of prosecutions brought under Covid powers by Wiltshire Police… A 29yo man, previously homeless but put into temporary accommodation during the pandemic, was targeted for begging outside Sainsbury’s in Trowbridge in Feb 2021

He was convicted under Covid laws, and issued with a £1760 fine. He had a month to pay off the money.

The fightback against the Sarah Everard vigil COVID prosecutions has begun.

Vivien Hohmann, 20, from Clapham, appeared in court today when her case was set down for trial on October 3 & 5.

She plans to challenge the Met over whether its response was “proportionate”. Six people have been prosecuted for attending the vigil, accused of breaking COVID rules by being in a gathering of more than 2 people.

Hohmann & Jenny Edmunds, 32, of Lewisham entered not guilty pleas - today’s hearing confirmed the Met’s determination to take cases to trial

UPDATE: A crying 18yo woman issued with a Covid Fixed Penalty & then wrongly accused by the Met Police of ignoring the fine has been cleared

It's been hanging over her for 17 months. She's giving birth in 4 days, so may have spent her entire pregnancy worrying about this.

https://twitter.com/kirkkorner/status/1521546227447484416

During last Jan's lockdown, she got into a car, broke the rules & was fined. She accepts that was wrong.

But police officers returned a couple of hours later to issue a second fine, when the woman was miles from home, obviously distressed, and reliant on others to get anywhere.

Three Sarah Everard vigil attendees have been convicted and fined after a Met Police prosecution

The defendants were convicted in a behind-closed-doors hearing last week, and each given a £220 fine, £100 in costs, and a £34 victim surcharge.
standard.co.uk/news/crime/sar… The evidence from Scotland Yard which was used to support the prosecutions is set out in full here:

https://twitter.com/kirkkorner/status/1534170870037598208

The court said no pleas or submissions were received from these three defendants and they were convicted by a single magistrate.

The Met Police justification for breaking up the Sarah Everard vigil is revealed.

Officers on the scene say it had become an ‘anti-police protest’, they claim they feared assault, and had been branded 'murderers' standard.co.uk/news/crime/met… The police's side of events is set out at length by an Inspector and four PCs involved in policing the event on March 13, 2021.

In a nutshell, they say arrests became justified when vigil attendees refused to move on, ignored them, and the crowd turned hostile.

Met Police is prosecuting Sarah Everard vigil attendees

It used Covid laws to block a planned event that day, but lost a High Court challenge to the legality of that decision

The Met may, however, have known months ago that its policing of large pandemic events was questionable The Million Mask March took place on November 5, 2020, the day the second national lockdown came into force.

Arrests were made in central London, Fixed Penalties were issued, and some of the cases made their way to court. Then many of them collapsed.

Sarah Everard vigil attendees face Met Police prosecution under Covid lockdown rules standard.co.uk/news/crime/sar… This is what the charge looks like. It is due to go before a magistrate in Westminster today

Textbook example today of the confusion caused by the Single Justice Procedure (SJP), and how the courts make little to no effort to improve the situation.

Model Katie Price was accused of speeding today. Here's the published court list: Yesterday, there were a slew of headlines about Price being 'due in court' today, along with details of the charge.

Except she wasn't due anywhere, as it's a behind-closed-doors SJP hearing.

But I'm not sure how the casual observer is supposed to know this.

The Met Police has fined and prosecuted thousands of Londoners over scenes like this.

Police officer walks in, sees booze on the table, drinks in hand…instant decision: everyone in the room gets a fine.

It’s hard to explain some at this party getting a fine, and the PM not

https://twitter.com/paulbranditv/status/1528754003416387589

Police officers on the ground interpreted the law simply and obviously, and the court files proved it.

London house party, alcohol on the table, fines all round

The Wagatha Christie case files have arrived.

Documents, tweets, and texts at the heart of the WAGs libel trial have finally been disclosed.

Here we go... 'Bex' is Vardy, 'Caroline' is her agent Caroline Watt.

Reference her to 'leak a story'

Met Police issued a Covid fine to a sobbing 18yo woman from Lewisham.

She appealed, saying she was trapped in a situation & complying with Covid rules would've meant walking 13 miles home alone at night.

Police ignored her appeal, prosecuted anyway, and then misled the court. The alleged offence happened in January last year, during the third national lockdown.

This is the police summary put before the court, along with a claim she had "not paid or contested" the £400 fine.

It doesn't matter if a lockdown gathering was for someone's birthday or not, says a judge

'Were you there with more than 2 people?' Yes = guilty

This comes not from a #Partygate probe at Downing St but the prosecution of a new mother who could have done with a lawyer The defendant, 27, from Erith, cradled her 6-week-old baby during the court hearing, appearing via videolink while moving home.

She was fined in December, but appeared at Westminster magistrates court this week in a bid to reopen the case as she hadn't known about the conviction

Lord Eric Pickles get the number of people who died in Grenfell Tower wrong, and appears to be frustrated at the amount of his time the Public Inquiry is taking up. Shameful.
independent.co.uk/news/uk/eric-p… Grenfell United statement: "Eric Pickles’ disrespect at the Inquiry has left us speechless. How dare he refer to our loved ones we lost that night as ‘the 96 nameless’. 72 people died in Grenfell & none of them were nameless.
His utter disregard for what happened and to those...

Breaking: A British embassy security guard is accused of sending a letter to the Russian military attaché in Berlin, Sergey Chukhurov, containing "details about the activities, identities, addresses and telephone numbers of various members of Her Majesty’s Civil Service". David Smith, 57, is due in court today on nine alleged breaches of the Official Secrets Act.

He is accused of attempting to contact General Major Chukhurov by letter between October and December 2020.