I spent all day sitting around a Youth Court today. I had one case listed in the morning and one case listed in the afternoon. This particular Youth Court is well known in East London for being particularly inefficient.
I arrived early and was ready with my Client early. My Client was due to be sentenced but due to a lack of a pre sentence report my Client's case was undoubtedly going to be adjourned. I had to wait over one and a half hours to get called in to Court to spend five minutes asking for an adjournment.
My case in the afternoon was ready to go in to Court just after 2.00 pm. The same usher and same lay bench in the same Court from the morning took another two hours to call on the case.
Neither case finished today. I have achieved nothing today. Looking back I wish I had got a colleague to cover the hearings or instructed a barrister to represent my Clients. I may sound lazy but I have got other cases to prepare and the time spent traveling and waiting today could have been spent preparing those cases.
1 comment:
I don't know if it still happens, but at my court it was not unknown for the ushers to get a bottle or a box of chocs from local solicitors at Christmas.......
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