The Defence Brief

The Criminal Justice System is not the place for vulnerable kids Today I took a break from my usual diet of drink driving  to covered a stint as youth court duty solicitor for someone who couldn’t make it. I haven’t been a youth court duty for quite a long time but it wasn’t too bad. I arrived bright and early at 9.30am ready to collect my papers for the day and get to work. But, there were no papers and nobody in need of representation. I found a room, did some work until lunch time then sat back with a couple of episodes of the X Files for an hour and a half (thank you Amazon Prime). Just as the second episode ended (it was the one with the secretary whose boss was murdered and who is now protecting her from terrorists and his former business partner from beyond the grave) I got a call telling me that there was, at last, somebody for me to see. Dashing up to the CPS room, I collected the papers and then ran to the cells to see my new client. It’s ages since I’ve ...

In January I dealt with a 17-year-old girl who had been arrested for something she hadn't done but then proceeded to write her name several times on the cell walls in pencil.  Her mother attended, told her off and offered to make her rub off the pencil marks.  The original reason for her arrest was dropped by the police but she was charged with criminal damage as the Youth Offending Team (YOT) would not authorise a reprimand. In December 2010, a colleague asked the YOT to review this again with a view to giving a warning or reprimand as it seemed like over-kill to give somebody who had never been in contact with the police let alone the courts a criminal record for such a minor offence. Unfortunately, the YOT didn't seem to want to do anything.  So, when I went back in January it was adjourned again to give them some more time.  I've just looked at the file.  It was finally resolved at the end of February after five adjournments for the YOT to make a decisio...