COD - Jeremy Vine is talking about magistrate shortages

[yoyo]

Why don't you phone in with your experience? Your chance to cosy up to JV!

do you need lots of gravitas to be a mag?

i once saw a coroner with none, she looked about 19.

i find the hwole nvironment can be very nerve wrackign fro defendants and so the whole place has an aura of it really

So you get paid then? I had always presumed it was a voluntary role.

Yes, Cod, I am the man who sleeps at the bottom of your garden carefully disguised as a compost bin.

Thanks for the feedback. Retribution must be rather old skool then, eh !

I worked in a court for a bit. Some of it was fascinating. But some was much too scary and distressing for me. I saw one woman get sent to prison for smuggling drugs in to her brother in prison. She wasn't expecting it and she collapsed screaming on the floor saying she didn't have anyone to look after her children and one of her sons had special needs...it was truly horrible, I ran home in tears. I wouldn't be tough enough to work in that environment long-term. No way.

i cant belive that she wouldnt have been sentenced wihtout a probation psr in which case all that w odul ahev been dealt with

errr...looked pretty real to me!

do you not understand what i said?

The pre-sentencing report was done...and discussed beforehand...but she and her solicitor were apparently fairly confident that there would be enough mitigation to keep her out of prison. So it came as a surprise. I'm sure arrangements would have been made for her children, but I think she was just screaming anything she could to make the judge change his mind.

ah wel;;; judges you know

no...I think she deserved to go to prison. She smuggled drugs into a prison. I just haven't got the stomach to watch it happen. I was scared

hmm
wel somone has to do it

if i were assulted id like wopmone to deal with it not sy " ah well oh no i ocuoldnt judge othe rpople"
w ell some of them really deserve it

last week in court

"id had 7 pints and one vodka ice but no i wasn t drunk"

ffs

I agree...I had to question my own reactions there. I blundered out in tears and went home because it upset me seeing her like that..but if I had been asked to decide, I would have sent her to prison, because we can't have people smuggling drugs into prisons. I suppose I am the same as people who eat meat but couldn't kill a chicken I know someone has to do it.