Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.
Is involving a minor in a criminal activity an offence?
Use of child in the commission of burglary is a serious aggravating factor. Hopefully, the magistrates declined jurisdiction. It is then up to the Youth Court to decide where the child should be tried – see Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980 section 24.
http://www.statutelaw.gov.uk/con...&
filesize=17499
Personally, I would have thought that things might have been changed by now to prevent the appearance of a child defendant in the adult court.
[We only sit youth courts on 2 or exceptionally 3 days a week. Adult courts simply remand to the next possible youth court the rest of the time - ed]
Youth Justice is not my speciality but I suspect that the time is coming when Youth Courts and Youth Justice generally will be subjected to detailed analysis and reform. As just one example, I dislike the fact that any child/young person can be tried for any offence by a single person (DJ or, sometimes, a Circuit Judge). In my view they should be required to sit with youth justices.
Edited By Siteowner
May i ask if there were any parallels to be drawn from Mr Dickens parody of the magistrates court?
Or is it just the defendants that have remained in the 18th Century?
Im picturing Bystander having a quick snifter from the HipFlask whilst ordering the boy to be flogged.
Bystander wonders if the scene will be repeated in 150 years. I suspect it will, and every week in between.
Things do change.
In Dickens' time the accused would have been stealing because he had no other way of getting food etc.
The Mr Sykes in your example will have a home with amenities a Roman emperor could only have dreamed of. Fridge, tv, free health care, etc etc all paid for no matter how he behaves.
[I think you are agreeing with my first paragraph - ed]
Also, the courts in Dicken's time were capable of handing out a meaninful sentence which would have at least a hope of stopping the him doing this again.
Edited By Siteowner
Re PH's comment. Some of us dislike the fact that anyone, be they youth or adult, can be tried by a tribunal of one. And the extent to which this is happening for serious offences increases by the day. We used to sit with Stipes, as they then were, in Youth Courts but we, and the courts, were denied this some years ago.
What is wrong with our society? Why are we prosecuting a 12-year-old child for being used in this way?
That boy should be taken into care and looked after, not punished.
@David
Of course he shouldn't be punished. He might learn that actions have consequences. We do want to preserve the surprise he'll get when his latest crime is committed after his eighteenth birthday and he's tried as an adult.
I know you have to be careful about specifics, BS, but please do let us know the outcome & sentencing of this case.
Surely the use of the kid in this way will be seen as an aggravating factor.
I suspect it's 12 years too late to put him into care.
And that it will be his descendants before Bystander's successors in 2159.
BS, you say it was a joint charge. Why then was the youth remanded to the youth court? Surely a minor jointly charged with an adult will face trial in the adult court.
When I first left the RAF and started volunteering at a local Bail Hostel, my very first job, given to me by the Warden, was to accompany a young woman resident into town shopping. My task, to ensure she didn't do a runner.
On bail for a couple of months, until the Crown Court could hear her case, she was a lively, attractive and intelligent woman. Her crime, to pimp her 11 year-old son as a rent boy in King's Cross.
I'm still shocked 23 years (and many hard fought moments with the Probation Service) later.
@ Dai - when a young person/child is jointly charged with an adult the trial of the young person/child is still held in the youth court. If the adult's case is going to Crown Court (as I suspect will be the case here) then the magistrates may commit the youth to the Crown Court if it is in the interests of justice to do so. [See my earlier post and the link to the Magistrates' Court Act 1980 s.24].
@ David - you have a point about care and youth courts are mandated to consider the welfare of the young person/child as well as considering punishment.
@ HorseFerryRoad justice - yes, I agree. The increasing use of DJs(MC) in the magistrates' courts is now beginning to marginalise the JPs. They are finding their work less and less interesting because the professionals cherry pick the cases. In a youth court or a family proceedings court it is legally permissible for DJs to sit with magistrates but they choose not to.
In the recent case of W v Warrington Magistrates' Court we even see that a Circuit Judge was drafted in to try a case in the youth court.
http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/E.../2009/
1538.html
This procedure was brought in administratively in late 2007. Should such a major change to procedure occur administratively and without consideration by Parliament? When a circuit judge sits in a youth court he has the same powers as the magistrates' court. If you read the case you will see that, having found the youth guilty, the judge then committed the case to the Crown Court for sentencing and reserved the sentencing to himself.
I suspect - [don't know for sure] - that this procedure is being used more and more rather than the magistrates simply committing the case to the Crown Court in the first place. If they did that then a jury trial would be held rather than trial by judge alone.
@ Peter Hargreaves
As I understand it this is only available for grave crimes where, on conviction, a sentence of 2 years or less may be appropriate. The judges must have a "rape ticket" - they have been trained to deal with these sensitive matters.
In the past defence advocates tried hard to persuade us that the case was suitable for our jurisdiction, but since this change they now try hard to persuade us that only Crown Court trial (with a jury) is appropriate!
Crown Court judges see the worst of humanity and do not normally judge innocence or guilt. I do not think that they should sit alone to do these cases. An appropriate solution might be for them to sit with 2 Youth justices.
I agree, Dan.
By the way, out the back, at the Crown Court that we both go to, they call it a 'sex ticket'.
@ DanJP - yes, as I read it, the 2007 protocol for use of a circuit judge in the youth court applies only to rape cases. Nevertheless, it was a change brought in administratively - albeit by the senior presiding judge at the time. The argument FOR the procedure seems to be that trial should be in the youth court environment which is specially designed to deal with this age range of defendant.
Actually...Oliver was trying to figure out how to foil the robbery even as Sykes was hoisting him through the window, a problem solved when the butler shot him. I don't think that would go down so well in today's Britain.
I think is the butler even raised his voice nowadays he'd be in big trouble...
Whilst corrupting a minor isn't a laughing matter, and it's pathetic that this adult decided to train up the child in the family business, I confess to thinking of Rumpole more than of Dickens. These are Timpsons, not unschooled half-starved gin-soaked waifs with rickets from Seven Dials.
Yes, Katherine, they are indeed Timsons. But the family who were upstairs asleep when these two broke in wouldn't see the joke, any more than I would.
I imagine every court has its Timpson clan; the surname will almost acquire the status of an exception to the right to bail in its own right...
A youth jointly charged with an adult is never a straightforward matter, even when they appear at the same time; the legislation is frankly creaking under the strain of successive procedural changes.
Parliament did approve circuit judges sitting as District Judges (MC) in section 66 Courts Act 2003, although they may well not of have in mind the potential for using them to handle rape cases in the Youth Court. The Youth Court constitution rules now require DJs to sit alone; previous experience of the combined DJ/justices line-up was very positive, a formidable tribunal but no doubt rather expensive.
But the reverse can apply. Last Autumn I was faced with a local Timson, who had been nicked for a twoppenny-ha'penny shoplifting,and remanded overnight on account of his surname.
That's why we fined him a hundresd quid, cancelled out by the (unnecessary) time he had spent inside.
@ Benchminder - many thanks.
Looking at Youth Court Constitution Rules:
http://www.opsi.gov.uk/si/
si2007...i_20071611_en_1
it seems that under Rule 10 a youth court is either a DJ(MC) sitting alone or is a bench. However, Rule 11 (Chairmanship) seems to rather contradict Rule 10 since Rule 11 seems to envisage a DJ(MC) sitting as a member of the court - in which event he would chair the court.
The Courts Act 2003 s.66 did give various judges the powers of a DJ(MC). This was aimed at greater flexibility in the use of the judiciary.
The outcome appears to be that a Youth Court can be either a DJ(MC) alone or a Judge (alone) or a bench. When judges as a youth court sit they have the normal powers of the youth court.
I remain firmly of the view that single judge trial on serious cases should not be the norm. I do not particularly see why a tribunal of judge + 2 experienced JPs would cost a great deal more and it would be a powerful and tribunal which would be seen to be entirely fair.
Of course, it is under this legislation that youth justices and family justices must now be authorised. Authorisation is managed by the Training and Development Committees. Authorisation replaced the old election procedures.
As I said above, youth courts are not my speciality and I am grateful for the points you have made.
Smuggler, there are indeed parallels with the magistrates in Dickens' Bleak House... except the magistrates of today have morphed into the philanthropic/moral-relativistic Mrs Jellyby.
I am led to believe that certain elements of the community, or rather OUTSIDE of the community, instruct their pre-teen children to perform theft from shops. Is there any truth in this rumour, or is it just hysterical fallacy?
The difference being of course that the Dickensian Oliver would have got a punishment that made him cry and think twice about ever doing something similar again.
The contemporary Oliver will plead something about his human rights and get sent on a quad biking course, thus encouraging him to do it again and again and again.
Hard Head, I actually had the opportunity to meet some of the people you are thinking of when you talk about quad bike courses, on such a course. It was run by [an organisation associated with my county council] and was not linked to the criminal justice system, but I understand I was in the minority in not having form for at least vandalism. I over heard someone discussing using violence against someone who made a complaint of robbery.
All the people were from projects run by what used to be called the Youth Service, and the idea was that they would volunteer at other youth projects (which was why I was on the course). The Youth Workers that work with them seemed to think it would do them good.
The actual courses you talk about are run by the probation service and ordered by the courts with the aim of rehabilitation. One of the sentencing aims is 'the reduction of crime, including by deterrence' and another is 'rehabilitation'.
Barring anything involving a rubber hose or a dynamao, I don't really mind how the probation service reform offenders, just so long as they aren't throwing bricks at me, chasing me down the road promising to 'cut' me, punching me in the ear, threatening me with an air weapon, breaking in to my house etc.
Bystander, do you think in 150 years a blogger will write that 'Bystander would have recognised the whole scenario'?
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