Where Are They?!

I arrived at a North London Magistrates Court early this morning so I sat down and read through my Court file again and prepared my notes for a hearing. I sat down in a public area. Where I was sat I could not help over hearing the conversation from a group of three people.

At 9.55 am a phone call was made after the female defendant began to worry that her solicitor had not arrived yet. Clearly this was the defendant's first brush with the law because if she had been to Court before she would have known that solicitors rarely arrive at that particular Court that I was at before 10.15 am as the Court does not sit until 10.30 am, CPS and Probation do not come out of wherever they hide until 10.25 am, and they rarely open the internal doors to the Court rooms until 10.20 am.

The defendant then telephoned the solicitor's office at 10.00 am demanding to know where their solicitor was. They came off the phone complaining that they had been told that their legal representative was 'en route'. They wanted to know where the solicitor was at that very moment (I suppose GPS is an idea?).

The Solicitor arrived about 10.15 am to a volley of verbal abuse about not being on time and not caring. These comments were a little harsh.

I later discovered that the group of three had expanded to seven, and it appeared to be a family trip out to Court. They must have been a nightmare to deal with as a group as I am fairly sure that if one person raised a complaint or question for the solicitor that six other people would also say, "Yeah, what about that?"