Night court fails to serve up justice

London's first American-style night courts, which were set up to provide instant justice, are proving to be an expensive flop, an Evening Standard investigation has revealed.

The late sittings were introduced at Bow Street Magistrates Court in May as part of a £5.4million experiment to tackle muggings, make the capital's streets safer and slash the backlog of cases.

But, over two nights, the court dealt with only 13 cases and imposed fines totalling a paltry £125. The sessions cost the taxpayer thousands, though little more than one defendant an hour passed before the bench.

The weekend's sittings, which were scheduled to run from 6pm until midnight, ended an houranda-half early each night because of a lack of work - but the public purse still had to fund overtime payments for more than 30 court workers and their taxi fares home.

Saturday's duty policeman said his cab to Leatherhead cost £75, while other court workers confessed their fares cost £50 each and more.

The night courts were suggested by Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens, who had observed similar courts operating in New York.

Tony Blair trumpeted the idea of round-the-clock justice during the general election campaign, in a high-profile speech in which he pledged to combat "yob culture".

But, far from speeding up the notoriously slow wheels of justice and dishing out on-the-spot punishments, almost half of the weekend's cases had to be adjourned - usually because paperwork or evidence was not ready - while one could not go ahead because the defendant failed to turn up.

Sentences handed out in the remaining six cases included conditional discharges, and one-day spells in prison already served by the offenders. Court costs of only £100 were recovered over the two nights.

The sessions, which aim to get offenders into court within hours of a crime taking place, were also blighted by difficulties in contacting people during outof-office hours, and delays while prisoners were transported from police stations to the court.

As one court worker put it: "London is just not New York. It sounds good on paper but most of the time we end up sitting around twiddling our thumbs and asking each other trivia questions because there's not enough to do."

Rodney Warren, director of the Criminal Law Solicitors Association, said: "We said at the start of the project it was misconceived, and the events of the past few weeks have done nothing to change our view.

"It has ended up costing a great deal of money to achieve very little. It is plagued by delays and difficulties, and the additional cost of having people work at that time of night is enormous. The £5.4 million cost could have been spent in a far better way. What we need is a much more joined-up approach to tackling the problems of the criminal justice system than just this hotch-potch of pilots and ideas."

The pilot was weakened at the start when the Prison Service refused to take part. Officials argued that receiving prisoners late at night could compromise security - meaning all defendants remanded in custody after a late-night sitting are now held in police cells.

Solicitors have given the scheme a lukewarm response, saying defendants picked up at night are often too drunk or drugged to plead. They have also said that bringing suspects into court within hours of an alleged offence gave lawyers little time to study the case and increased the likelihood of a miscarriage of justice.

The night courts scheme will be reviewed in September, when ministers will decide whether to scrap it or extend it across the rest of the country.

A spokesman for the Lord Chancellor's Department said the success of the pilot scheme would be evaluated next month.

"We're reserving judgment until the end of the study. We will be looking at the results over four months, not just over a single weekend."

At the launch, courts minister Michael Wills said: "These schemes are aimed at ensuring criminal justice is able to deal swiftly and effectively with night offenders, deter criminals and make the courts more responsive to the needs of victims and witnesses - above all to reassure local communities, rather than criminals, who benefits from the justice system."