Laughing at the law

Once a fortnight for the past eight years, I have cycled down to Balham Youth Court to serve my community as a magistrate. It seemed like a useful way to give my time - an Ask Not What Society Can Do For You sort of thing. Then a couple of months ago I gave an interview to this newspaper outlining a few of the problems currently faced by the youth court, describing how the system is exploited by offenders and their advocates. As a result, I have been suspended by the Lord Chancellor. He is still deciding how to punish me.

I'm being investigated for being biased, for displaying prejudice. To begin with, I decided to play it their way, to bow my head and meekly take the medicine. I presumed I was just the sort of bloke they wanted as a JP - male, early forties, Labour Party member, liberal to the core of my soul. I thought we'd talk about it, reach some understanding. But instead I found myself being interviewed by a judge, himself astonishingly aggressive, patronising and bullying, who seemed unwilling to consider the fact that every single magistrate I know agrees with me. Or that the Home Office itself has issued explicit guidance on this matter. Apparently, I'm the only one who's biased.

So I'm sure the Lord Chancellor will fire me now for saying this. This may well be the longest resignation letter in the history of the magistracy. But in the heat of this crucial debate about rising crime figures, I feel it's time a few simple facts were laid squarely and honestly on the table. For too long the youth court has been an unknown, hidden from public gaze. And for too long magistrates have been told to put up and shut up.

So what did I say that was so inflammatory? Did I express gross racist sentiments? Or demand the overthrow of the constitution? No, I told the truth about the disservice we are doing to both offenders and victims under the present system. I described how the tactical not-guilty plea is the cancer at the heart of the system, rotting it, rendering it ineffectual or frequently downright unworkable.

The result? Embryonic persistent offenders are quickly taught that they can work the system - that grown-up professionals will stand up in court and make feeble, contrived, irrelevant excuses for them. No one ever looks them in the eye and demands: "Did You Do This?" They aren't taught to feel accountable, only that there are numerous ways to wriggle out. Given that the youth court's number one aim is to prevent reoffending, does this sound to you as if we're getting it right?

So the Metropolitan Police Commissioner is largely right when he says the courts are letting down his force, though he doesn't mention the cases that occasionally collapse because his own officers don't turn up to give evidence-And the chairman of the Bar also has a point when he ripostes, claiming the police seem to want kangaroo courts. But he's thinking of Old Bailey trials, where time and money ensure the evidence is properly presented.

The youth court - dealing with 98 per cent of youth crimes - is much more of a wing- and- prayer place, desperately in need of speed and compromise. So a defence lawyer, required to find something to support his client's not guilty instruction, need only demand every last police radio transcript, every last CCTV video and the system creaks to a halt. Trials are repeatedly delayed, then adjourned, then abandoned.

In the end, many victims and witnesses can't be bothered or haven't time to turn up again. I've seen it from the other side too: my 13-year-old was recently a mugging victim and together we've so far spent 30 hours in police stations and courts. That's 60 man-hours. We've stuck it out, but all too frequently the (alleged) offender walks free, sticking an ironic finger up at the system which is, ultimately, only trying to improve the rest of his life. Call that an effective system? I don't.

I should emphasise that I have never once encountered a corrupt or criminally-minded lawyer. All I am saying is that the adversarial system forces this sort of knowing procrastination out of them. From the moment that little (or sometimes not so little) Darryn says the magic words "I didn't do it", the advocate has no choice but to pursue every conceivable hole in the prosecution case. He is forced to make legal submissions, nit-picking at procedural points in the hope that the police have failed to obey the evidence codes to the last exact letter.

Even if trials do ultimately reach a verdict, the damage is done. The six, nine, sometimes 12 months that pass between arrest and verdict are Darryn's peak time for reoffending. Yet because he is doggedly pleading not guilty, there is no social services intervention, no oversight, no help. How can there be? He hasn't done anything, apparently. That we let kids slide further into criminality during this period is a terrifying tragedy.

The youth court has so much power for good. The need to rebuild the lives of these scared, lonely, damaged children is paramount. I would love to go on working in the youth court, but I fear that the Lord Chancellor's department - which seems to conform to all the rumours of Whitehall conservatism - will now have me down as a marked man.

In reply, I'd like to say I'm a concerned man, a forward-thinking man, a man who believes every individual has a part to play in reforming society. I'm also a passionate supporter of this Government, but it's time we started being honest about what's happening in youth justice.

So the ball's in your court, Lord Irvine. What do you want to do? Take this chance to overhaul the youth-court system, drag it kicking and screaming into the 21st century? Or let it carry on as the laughing stock of the police, the Crown Prosecution Service, the victims and, most disturbingly, the young offenders themselves?

PS: If you want me back, my bike's in the hall, I can be in Balham in 10 minutes.