Very much as the title. The District Judge used these exact words three times and I'm really not sure exactly what was meant.
For background, DH took the day off work today to provide moral support for a friend of his who was appearing at the local magistrates court.
They were sitting outside the courtroom waiting for his friend to be called. DH had never seen the inside of a magistrates court before (or any other type of court!) and was rather bored with just sitting there waiting.
So he decided to go and sit in the public gallery of the court just to see what goes on, while they were waiting.
He said he was surprised how quickly cases were dealt with but he was also impressed that the Judge spoke in appropriate language when speaking to defendants so that they clearly understood the effect of any conditions placed on them (he mentioned that the Judge had explained exactly what 'indirect contact' was in bail conditions, giving examples, so that the defendant was very clear on his conditions).
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So, that's the background. Then a person was brought up from the court cells and this is where it got a bit strange.
It was a bail application and the man had been charged with a really odd combination of offences. They were
Outraging public decency
Criminal damage
Assaulting a shopworker
Attempted robbery
DH thought that was a rather odd assortment of charges. It turned out that the first two were from earlier this year and the second two were separate offences while he was out on bail.
He had been remanded in custody at first but then later bailed.
The prosecutor mentioned that the first two charges related to an incident around the time of the D-Day anniversary in June in Sheffield.
The District Judge then said that the case would go to the Crown Court and that there were "political issues" around this case. She used this phrase another two times while talking with the prosecutor.
She left the courtroom to telephone Sheffield magistrates court for some reason (apparently because of these "political issues"). She couldn't get in touch with Sheffield and so the case was adjourned to the afternoon.
DH has no idea what happened in the afternoon. As soon as his friend's case was over they left the building and went for some lunch.
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This sounded very strange to me. So, just doing a very quick search looking for outraging public decency and criminal damage at Sheffield cenotaph, the original arrest and charges were right at the top of the search results.
It turns out that the defendant is an asylum seeker and the case was widely reported in the local press and some national press.
Could that be the "political issues" that the Judge was talking about?
If so, why would a judge be taking "political issues" into account anyway when dealing with a bail application?
Even more so, why would she even say this out loud in open court?
Is there any explanation of what she may have been referring to? Could she just have been talking about "political issues" as to whether this is heard in Sheffield or the local courts?
I really don't know at all. Has anyone else ever come across a situation like this?