First midnight court to open

Britain's first experiment with a New York-style midnight court is to be launched in London on Friday as part of a drive to process offenders more quickly.

The pilot scheme will start at Bow Street magistrates' court in Covent Garden and run until September with sessions from 6pm until midnight on Friday and Saturday. Anyone arrested in central London could be in the dock within hours.

Suspects remanded in custody will be held in police cells at Charing Cross, as prisons would not be able to accept late-night arrivals for security reasons. However, it is possible in straightforward guilty plea cases that the entire legal process from arrest to sentence could be dealt with on the same night.

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens is strongly in favour of 24-hour courts to tackle the capital's soaring street robbery rates. Tony Blair's policy unit has also backed the idea, which ministers hope will push juvenile offenders through the system quickly and effectively nip their criminal careers in the bud.

But there have been concerns about how useful or cost-effective the late sessions will be. Minister for courts Michael Wills, who is also launching early morning courts in Manchester, said: "We will need to test whether extended hours fulfils its stated aim of reducing delays, deterring local criminals, improving access to justice and helping reassure local communities."

The Magistrates' Association has expressed concern about defendants being properly represented and courts gaining access to details of their background. The Prison Service is known to fear the impact on short-staffed jails already struggling to cope with massive daily movements of prisoners to and from courts.