£74

I went off to a far flung Crown Court today to deal with a preliminary hearing. The hearing went as planned as just as I was about to get in to my car to drive the return leg of the 150 mile journey to my office I received a phone call. The call was from my office telling me that one of our regular Clients was at the Magistrates Court local to where I was currently standing. I then made my way to the Court and arrived just after 11.00 am.

When I got to Court I could not see the Client and as I had only met them once before I could not be sure what they looked like. I shouted out the Client's name on the Court concourse several times and then heard a sniggering coming from behind me. A defendant, who was surprisingly well dressed, looked at me and said, "You've got your hands full with that one. They are a right loud mouth." I knew that already but I was glad to see that my Client acted the same in a 'foreign' court as she did in their local court.

Eventually my Client made their way to where I was standing and after discussing their case we went in to Court. The result of the case was they were fined £40 for being drunk and disorderly, and ordered to pay £34 in costs to the Crown Prosecution Service. Now, I considered this sentence to be very fair, and the CPS costs were rather low. My Client came out of the Court raging, "How am I gonna pay that? Are they 'aving a laugh or wot?" The Client's brother turned round and said, in a very sensible way, "Oh shut up, if you had been given a ticket by the Police it would have cost you £80".

After delivering my advice that the sentence was not appeasable by Client thanked me for her representation, agreed that the sentence was reasonable under the circumstances - but they still wandered off complaining about the injustice of having to pay £74 for being drunk and disorderly.