Magistrate defies Irvine to speak out

A London magistrate has accused Derry Irvine, the Lord Chancellor, of trying to gag him from raising the alarm over the state of the capital's youth courts.

Jonathan Myerson told today how he was suspended from sitting in court after using an article in the Evening Standard to describe how youth courts were failing victims and young offenders.

But writing in today's paper, he risks being dismissed after eight years' service, by disclosing how Lord Irvine has investigated him for "displaying prejudice".

Mr Myerson, a writer and member of the Labour Party, whose own 13-year-old son was recently mugged, has been questioned by an "aggressive, patronising and bullying" judge and awaits his fate.

He admits that his article today could see him fired, but he is determined to expose what he calls the "cancer at the heart of the system" where young offenders are encouraged to play the system by defence lawyers.

Mr Myerson's critique comes as London faces a teenage crimewave that has seen street robberies soar to more than 50,000 a year - but the criminal justice system of police, courts, prisons, probation and youth offending teams has a record of failure in punishing and reforming the muggers.

Lord Chief Justice Lord Woolf sent a clear signal recently that violent cases of mobile phone robbery should always end in a jail term, even for first-time offenders. But the judgment, designed to reassure the public and send a warning to young criminals, disguises the fact that nine out of 10 robberies never lead to court.

Police managed to make arrests in scarcely one in 10 robbery cases last year.

Even when a case gets to court, however, the system fails to save society from crime. An amazing 60 per cent of robbery cases against juveniles in London collapse or end in acquittal and only 14 per cent lead to a prison term.

Mr Myerson explains how so many cases collapse because of obstructive defence lawyers.

"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," he writes.

The result, he says, is embryonic persistent offenders are taught they can work the system. "No one ever looks them in the eye and demands 'Did you do this?'

"They are not 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?"

Home Office analysis shows a total of 1,782 children aged 10 to 17 went to court for robbery offences during 2000. But 1,077 cases were withdrawn, dismissed or ended in not guilty verdicts - cases collapse because witnesses fail to turn up, evidence is weak or courts lose patience with Crown Prosecution Service delays. Of the 705 convictions, most led to community sentences, which can include orders to repair damage or pay compensation. A total of 258 ended in immediate custody. The length of each sentence is unclear, but national Prison Service figures show that most convicted young robbers get tough jail terms - 44 per cent are sentenced to between three and 10 years, a further 36 per cent get 18 months to three years, 11 per cent between one year and 18 months, and the remaining 10 per cent get sentences of less than a year.

But while Britain spends £1billion a year trying to deal with the consequences of seven million youth crimes, 80 per cent of all convicted juveniles are back in trouble, with fresh convictions, inside two years. Laughing at the law