New beginnings

June 17, 2010 — simonashall

On June 29, this blog will be one year old. During the election campaign, I experienced quite a bit of traffic as the Rosie vs Jonathan battle heated up but with the elections over and everyone fed up of politics, those readers have gone and the number of repeat visits – mostly I suspect from Lib Dem activists checking what I had written – reduced.

During the next 10 days, I will be busy preparing to get married and am going to take that time away from the blog to think about how to make it better for readers in future. I want to move it away from being nominally a Horsell blog because there wouldn’t really be enough to write about on a daily basis and now Horsell has The Resident blog, I’d rather contribute to the debate on that site that try to match it here. So a change in name is probably in the offing, which I know is terribly confusing but it’ll hurt me more!

I’d still like to be able to give a view of what’s going on in the Woking democratic process from the perspective I get working quite closely with the Conservative group and association. I think that’s something you probably can’t get elsewhere and could be useful (but not too useful, obviously!). I’d also like to be able to talk, within obvious boundaries, about my experiences as a magistrate because again, that’s something that isn’t necessarily available elsewhere.

As I go through my CIPR course (I got a distinction for my first assessment, by the way!) I’d also like to start talking more about Public Relations as a influential factor in our society and politics and picking  up on instances of bad PR and where it has had a subtle effect. For example the Daily Mail carried a story today about a Piranha being caught in a Kent lake. Not at all tied in to the Piranha 3D movie, released in August, I’m sure.

What I don’t want this blog to become is a commentary on national politics, because there’s a load of other blogs that are better than me at that. You know my position, liberal Tory, finding out what someone thinks of every issue gets tedious unless they’ve anything unique to say. So those are some of the thoughts going round in my head. When I get back after my marital mini-break (we’re not honeymooning until September), they’ll be a redesign using the superb WordPress 3.0 and a re-launch along slightly different lines.

Posted in Community, Mundane occurances, Other blogs. Tags: , , , , , , . 2 Comments »

Courting controversy

May 20, 2010 — simonashall

Woking Magistrates Court - photo: Surrey Advertiser

A couple of weeks ago, the Surrey Ad also ran a story about rumours surrounding the possible closure of Woking Courthouse, which incorporates the magistrates court, as well as family and youth courts. It would appear that this is an option being considered and many people at the courthouse are determined to fight any such proposal.

The reasons for keeping Woking Courthouse open are manifold and, I believe, self-evident. We have in this country a superb principle of justice delivered for the community by the community. A person accused of a crime can expect to have a fair and uniform hearing locally in public and by their peers – removing the Woking function and placing it all with Guildford means that people from as afar as Camberley, Addlestone and Weybridge as well as Woking will have justice administered in a different part of Surrey. I feel this is entirely inappropriate.

More so given Woking’s unique ethnic and cultural diversity. The courts service in Woking has a very good relationship with Woking Mosque and other organisations dealing with mental health and social issues in North West Surrey. Moving the court operation to Guildford interrupts many of these good relationships and makes achieving the court’s objectives with large sections of society in this part of Surrey more difficult.

Woking is Surrey’s largest town with an urban population exceeding both Guildford and Reigate. It is unthinakable that we should be without the facilities to cater for the needs of that population and those include the apparatus needed to dispense justice fairly, quickly and locally. Woking’s proximity to Guildford should not be an excuse to ignore these demographics – Guildford is quite busy enough as it is.

Finally, there has to be a question about what happens to Woking Police Station if the courthouse closes. The station is linked to the courthouse via an underground passageway and both the station and courthouse have a suite of custody cells. There is a similar arrangement in Staines, Guildford and Redhill and between this quartet, 95% of people accused of crimes are dealt with in these courts. If Woking courthouse went, there would be little sense in keeping the police station in its present form if it were denied the above role – and that too is a serious worry.

As for the magistrates, I can only speak for myself but I applied to serve my community in my community and while I agreed to sit anywhere the courts service requested, my clear preference was always Woking. For that option not even to exist for applicants in the future would indeed be a very retrograde step.

Posted in Community, Justice, news. Tags: , , , . No Comments »

Watching your words

May 18, 2010 — simonashall

An interesting story in a few of the papers today is the case of the magistrate in Blackburn who faces disciplinary action after using the term “absolute scum” to describe young defendants in court.

The Daily Mail story (almost verbatim) is interesting because it offers us an insight into some public opinion in the comments underneath, almost all of whom agree with the magistrate and say that his comments were justified and correct. This raises an interesting question about magistrates – whose justice do magistrates dispense?

Justice, of course, is the crown’s and the Queen’s and last Monday I swore two oaths – both included phrases to serve and pledge alliegance to the Queen and her successors. But if magistrates are taken from the local population, shouldn’t they be free to express the views of the society they serve? Well, yes and no. Magistrates are free to express the court’s views on a crime or sentence to defendants within certain perameters if they are serving as a bench chairman.

But the Judicial Oath also contains in it the words:

“I will do right to all manner of people after the laws and usages of the Realm without fear or favour, affection or ill will”

To me, although the bit about the Queen is important, it is this forward-facing part of the oaths that is most relevant on a day-to-day basis. The magistrate on this occasion may feel he was speaking for the community and that by phrasing it the way he did and attributing the “absolute scum” to what “normal people”, rather than he or the court might think he was ameliorating the bane.

But what he has actually done is created the perception – however misplaced – of ”ill will” towards the defendants and reinforced those feelings within the community. That, it my view, goes against the Judicial Oath. The fact that the comments were made in a Youth Court – where particularly sensitive and careful work with young people goes on – is also unfortunate.

The gentleman concerned is an experienced magistrate and has  given considerable service to his community. And the culture of the magistracy generally is one of ongoing training, improvement and support for everyone involved – we all make mistakes and discussion, correction and learning is the positive approach to addressing them.

But, sorry to disappoint the Daily Mail, we can’t have justices appointing themselves as “voices of the community” or stamping their own moral code on the courtroom, however awful the offence and unrepetent the defendant.

Using their reasonable judgement to dispense justice according to the law is the sole purpose of a justice; anything else is politics and that, as we know, belongs in a different place.

Posted in Justice, news. Tags: , , , . No Comments »

Centre-Righter’s block

May 14, 2010 — simonashall

So now Gordon and his merry men are out of Downing Street and DC has become PM, what is there left to write about? It wouldn’t be so bad if I could switch attention onto the Lib Dems but they are now our partners so I can’t write anything about them either (plus they are all such nice people, of course).

Thankfully, Woking Borough Council fires up in six days with the first Muslim mayor of Woking, Cllr Mohammed Iqbal, being sworn in. I’ve known Cllr Iqbal for a number of years and he cares about his community. He has worked very hard to bring about positive changes in Maybury and Sheerwater and is a very approachable man with a great sense of humour and humility.

He will make a superb mayor – and it is about time that the Muslim community in our town should be represented among the roll of those who’ve served this town as council Chairman and later Mayor. I’m particularly proud that they should come from the ranks of the Conservative Party, though I know the other parties will share our enthusiasm for this development.

In addition, we wait to see what form the council will take this year. Although the election results produced no net change with 18 Con, 17 LD and one independent, our tenancy of the mayoralty this year means that the numbers are effectively 17-all with Peter Ankers having the casting vote if parties follow the whip. I have my doubts as to how healthy this situation is but perhaps more on this another time.

While I would obviously have preferred to have been sitting in the chamber around the benches on May 20, I was sworn in as a magistrate on Monday afternoon by the Lord Lieutenant of Surrey Sarah Goad, High Sheriff Robert Douglas and Mr Justice Critchlow at Guildford Crown Court in a short but memorable ceremony. I was particularly delighted that my parents were able to be there and I could see Mum welling up as I read the oath!

In all honesty, I have several months of quite intensive training and sitting ahead of me and it would have been ambitious to have combined it with the duties of a councillor. My father thought I was completely mad to have even considered it – perhaps he was right and some things happen for a reason.

That said, I have got a meeting of the Horsell and Woodham Conservatives this evening where I have to explain away our failure to win (joke, they are all extremely supportive) and we have got plenty to do in Horsell to make sure that people’s lives are improved and that they are represented well in council. As I said a week ago, councillor or not, the community is always there to be served.

Posted in Community, Woking Borough Council, news. Tags: , , , , , , , . No Comments »

Justice of the Peace

March 18, 2010 — admin

I received a letter when I got back from work this evening with some very exciting news – Jack Straw has confirmed my appointment to the Commission of the Peace for England and Wales and – subject to some induction and training days – I will begin sitting as a magistrate in Woking from this summer.

It’s obviously a great honour to come through a pretty rigorous application process that’s taken nearly two years successfully. I’ve great support from my employer Mouchel, which has been brilliant in giving me assurances and the time off needed to sit on the bench without which I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

But even though it’s an honour for me, more importantly it’s a duty for the rest of Woking. I’m due to start my training next month and be sworn in at Guildford on May 10.

I used to spend quite a bit of time in court as a reporter and was always interested in the role that magistrates played. It crossed my mind back then that it was something I wanted to do and I’m just really pleased that now I’ve got that chance.

Just going out to a Horsell Village Hall trustee meeting and then hope to write another update later.

Posted in Community, Justice. Tags: , , , , . No Comments »
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