I used to visit our ENGLISH WORKING CLASS COURT SYSTEM

[GabbyLoggon]

to explain, the court staff tended to be middle class. But the defendants were mostly working class. Cant they catch the middle class wrongdoers. ? (I only only ask the questions....vicky derbyshire would like to be a judge

stick to the subject at hand. It works better that way. Hands up all those who have never researched our court system? just what i thought

I'll stick to whatever subject I like, thanks all the same. Anyway, online discussions work better when the people involved can construct and maintain logical, coherent arguments.

Nevertheless, what is the subject at hand? Something about class and the court system isn't it? What is the point you are trying to make? Other than visiting some courts, what actual research have you done? And what are your thoughts on this subject?

I certainly have an interest in the court system of our country seeing as I work in it. However, I still think that this thread is a load of incoherent, disconnected nonsense.

However, to answer the original question, it isn't exactly rocket science is it? The majority of the crime that is prosecuted through the magistrates' court on a daily basis is the bog standard stuff that happens every day. The bulk of the MC work isn't murder and rape and fraud. It is shoplifting and low level public order offences and criminal damage. A lot of this sort of crime has a close correlation with financial deprivation. Therefore a high proportion of the people sitting in the MC on a daily basis are very low income/unemployed.

The mags court also deals with DV and drink driving which, as someone mentioned earlier, tend to be far more cross-class. Tower Bridge for example tends to see a lot of middle class professionals up for drink driving - I have dealt with several junior doctors from the local hospital for this offence.

The type of crime that is dealt with in the mags is the type of crime that is, for obvious reasons, less prevalent in people who have the means to get better paid jobs, houses outside areas of social deprivation, children in schools with few social problems etc etc. The middle classes still commit crimes - they just don't tend to be the grass roots stuff that is seen in the mags court every day.

It's got nothing to do with paying for a "better lawyer" either. The same lawyers do private work and legal aid work - legal aid lawyers aren't a special underclass for people who can't afford any better. There are a few specialists who don't do legal aid but they tend to be fraud lawyers. If someone isn't eligible for legal aid they have the option of paying privately. They still get the same solicitor.

"stick to the subject at hand. "

There is no subject at hand. you've made no points or issues for debate

Missed Snorbs' post as I started typing mine quite a while ago - while sitting in the magistrates' court incidentally.

I agree. There is no point wallowing in waffle and then getting all snippy with those who point out that there is no structure or coherence to your arguments.

Actually, it occurs to me that I can probably resolve this argument right now. How about I open the door to the advocates' room, stick my head out and ask for a show of hands by those who consider themselves working class and then ask why they did it.

Yes list callers, it ain't kansas anymore toto.

You know I think they call Rehab a DTTO a DRR Community order with drug treatment requirement nowadays as well.

Don't even get me started on whatever happened to the PDH.

Funny about Tower Bridge, a few middle classers for drunken criminal damage and drink drive, though IME seems to be a lot of v drunk madmen loitering about.

KUNGFU you have a vested interest matey. How often do people speil against their own vested interest? (seldom, until they get pushed out)

This debate goes on for ever. Charles Dicken did it in Bleak House. There is no resolution

Dont patronise us KUNGFU....collect your pay cheque. Your boss wants a few words with you.

snorbs mumsnet is for all sorts. There is no prem league twittler. Get your head out of the lofty clouds.

i dont get the list callers thing

I asked you to clarify what point it is you are trying to make and what your thoughts are on it. In return, rather than actually giving anybody a clue what it is you're prattling on about, you accuse me of having my head in "lofty clouds". Uh-huh.

Gabby, I mean this in all seriousness, do you have a drug or alcohol problem?

snorbs People who can read and have taken an interest in the court system
will understand. You sound like a Tory on a day trip to Surrey. Make sure you find some quicksand.

SNORB I am not intereste din hatchet people like you who stopped thinking 30 years ago. And live by other peoples Tory cliches. A few readings of the Sun would improve your intellect. And your grasp of the jokes on the back of matchboxes.

I'm not patronising "us", Gabby - I am patronising you. Just you. Because you are spouting more drivel than usual.

And please explain exactly where my vested interest lies. You asked a question - can't they catch the middle class wrong-doers? I answered the question. Where exactly is my vested interest? It makes absolutely no difference to me whether I represent working class defendants, middle class defendants or the super-rich on a shoplifting frolic. The job is the same. The law is the same. The pay is the same. The middle classes tend to be a bit harder work because they tend to think they know the law, but that is the only difference.

Explain the vested interest please. Go on. Prove that you can actually engage in a sensible discussion rather than vomiting random words and insults. Meanwhile I will be at work so that I can continue to collect my paycheque - something which seems to fill you with ire for some reason. Is that because there is no paycheque available for scribbling incomprehensible concepts across the internet?

Do you earn your bread and butter out of our court system Kungfu.?(I pity you.) To be that up the bum of the establishment must be awful GO ON JUMP FREE of the brown stuff. (You have read Dickens in |Bleak House, I take it)

Gabby has always spoken Gablish. Tis tradition.

Yes, Gabby. I earn my bread and butter representing people in court and advising them at the police station. I earn my bread and better standing beside some very unfortunate people at some of the low points of their lives. I earn my bread and better advising people with serious mental health problems and trying to persuade the courts to deal with them in a way that helps them and doesn't push them even further down. I earn my bread and butter putting complicated legal concepts into really basic language that a 12 year old can understand, even when he is at court with no parent or carer and he has dropped out of school because his alcoholic mother can't get out of bed in the morning to make sure he attends.

I earn my bread and butter working alongside probation officers who spend hours talking to people and trying to get beyond the obvious and down to the real heart of the problem, and YOT officers who write pages and pages of insightful, heartfelt information on the 15 year-old they have seen grow up and are now terrified will go the same way as his murdered, gang-member older brother. And security staff who spend their tea-break standing at the door of a cell talking to a frightened teenager or a de-toxing addict. And community police officers who spend their free time running voluntary drugs programs with the help of recovered addicts and offenders.

I earn my bread and butter doing vast quantities of pro-bono work alongside our paid work because the last government decided it no longer wanted to pay for some of the essential parts of the system. I earn my bread and butter working alongside a woman who has won awards for her dedication to representing disadvantaged people in the criminal justice system, who has spent her entire adult life working herself as hard as she possibly can, who never presses "reject call" when someone rings from a police station at 2 in the morning.

I earn my bread and butter doing a job that needs to be done and needs to be done well and I do it in the face of the Daily Mail and The Sun and the paper-pushers. And quite frankly, Gabby, you can actually fuck right off with your small-minded yapping about things you clearly have shit-all understanding or respect for because damn right I am proud of what I do, and I spend my days surrounded by people who are proud of what they do. We might moan about the problems in the system, the pay cuts, the corner-cutting etc, but we get on with the job and we do it well.

What do you do, Gabby?

Well, we seem to have exhausted the subject. What would I change?

I would request that the press stop going to court as "officers of the court" Hold their heads up as journalists and sit in public seats.

In this low profile support for the C of E...dont place so much reliance of the oath in court

Give jurors slightly more comfortable seats.

There is a heavy fear factor at crown court. The system should reduce it.

I once had a baby crying on a recorder Crossed my legs it went off in court.

Seriously? Those are your proposals for change in the criminal justice system? Well they are going to lead to a ground-shaking overhaul of the system you despise, aren't they?

Make the press sit somewhere else. Remove the CofE option from the oath list that includes options for Jews, Muslims, Hindus and Atheists. And more comfortable seats.

Do you seriously not get it, Gabby? The system has bigger things to worry about than this sort of trivia. The criminal justice system is broke. More comfortable seats? It can't even afford to replace broken seats in the existing courtrooms. Courts are being closed down all over the place to save money. The defendants from these closed courts are filtered into other courts which can't cope with the extra work and are sitting later and later, and pushing work further and further into the future. All of this costs money and the government is making cut after cut.

The system can barely keep functioning as it is. It keeps going because it is buoyed up by an awful lot of people who are prepared to work long hours for less and less money, and by volunteers who fill in some of the crucial gaps.

And you think anyone has time to trouble themselves about one of the oaths, or where the local cub-reporter sits, or whether juror number 3 has a numb bum?

If you are going to rant about something, for goodness sake pick something a bit less banal and irrelevant.

So this is Gabby "sticking to the subject at hand":

He/she starts off with something largely incomprehensible about class in the courts, goes on to repeatedly boast about his/her serious interest in the courts and "study the sysem Best courts in the world. ? [sic]" and throws around a large number of pathetically off-target accusations that those critical of his/her meaningless bollocks is because they are "tories".

And the upshot of all this experience, research and keen insight? The thoughtful suggestions for addressing the deeply ingrained judicial class issues that started this whole sorry thread off?

a) Get journalists to sit somewhere else in the court
b) And on slightly better chairs. Oh, and
c) Somehow ensure that "the system" reduces the anxiety that goes along with appearing in court. (Because, after all, appearing in court accused of some crime that could cause you to go to jail should be fun fun fun!)

Well, that's the class problem in court solved then isn't it?

Personally, I feel that if anyone in the court system is going to get a better chair it should be me. Ideally a long way away from the journalists and any subversive C of E types and with a good view of the courtroom fun.

But maybe that's just because I am middle class.

this takes it to the hundred mark....more heat than light. I dont think I have learned more about our court system than I knew before. But it was worth a try. Thanks

Well get off your backside and go and do some proper research if it is important to you. No point sitting behind your keyboard firing insults at anyone who actually makes the mistake of engaging with you.