Justice feat. Usher

When taking a stroll around the Crown Court there are certain people who you meet who are very important and there are those who are not so important. Then there are those who are very important but they are not there '“ it is rather like the Donald Rumsfeld's 'known unknowns'.

Starting with the ones who are there and are very important, let us give a big round of applause to the ushers. Ushers are the oil in the system. Ushers make the world go round. Ushers are the link between the judge, the advocates, witness service, the cells and the tap that fills the water jugs.

A good usher is a wonderful thing. Ushers walk many miles and have to try to smile a lot, like air stewardesses. Ushers have to alert you to the fact that it's 'all about to kick off' outside court.

Now some ushers are not so good '“ some have been known to fall asleep; some are so busy reading police interviews that you might as well be in a busy restaurant trying to send the soup back because it's cold. But a good usher has a nose for trouble and quick reactions for the box of tissues; they have the pencils nice and sharp and can wake a sleeping juror just by strolling in the front of the jury box.

A good usher can get you up a rung in the snakes and ladders that is the listings game, if you need to get away, or keep you at the foot of a snake if you are busy in the next door court. Ushers have seen it and heard it all before, and perhaps would be a good source of tribunal if we all get too expensive and the government would rather some quick decisions were made that were pretty well reliable.

Advocates seem to be the least important '“ if at least some of the witnesses are telling the truth, then what happened, and so then what the right result should be, ought to be pretty obvious. CPS representatives are very important but are not always there when you need them; and reviewing lawyers are normally not there when you need them. It is a rule of nature that the reviewing lawyer for your case is not available when you want him or her, but is away somewhere else doing some reviewing on other people's cases or down at the police station (or on a course).

Defendants are very important and '“ it still amazes me '“ most of the time, are there. On a beautiful summer's morning, or just before Christmas, they still turn up knowing full well they will be leaving by the back door and 'in the van'. Why don't they run away? Why don't they say 'nobody will take me alive' and nip off to Spain, or wherever they go these days. No, in they troop with a little wave to their mates and their little bag as if on an overnight trip somewhere for the weekend and, jangle-jangle, down they go.

So for the most part we do have the important people: judge and jury, obviously, to make the decisions, advocates to not mess it up too much, defendants doing the decent thing, court clerks to make sure that the sentence is not unlawful and that all of the little bits and bobs have been remembered. We have witness services to get the witnesses through and we have the press to misreport the whole thing. And we have the ushers who keep all of the balls in the air, get us started, close us down, and ease everything along.

Crowd pleaser

But, apart from the CPS, who else goes missing in action? Well, I shall tell you '“ and this, if I were prime minister, would solve the crime problem overnight. What we need is not just the defendants and the witnesses, but the real source of most of the criminality in this country. We need the police to arrest the Wrong Crowd.

It is the Wrong Crowd who are, most egregiously, absent from Crown Court proceedings. Most things are their fault: time after time the defendant has only offended because he got in with this Wrong Crowd. It is they who use unlawful violence in public places, use drugs, steal cars, and are responsible for 99.9 per cent of road traffic accidents.

How many times have we all heard how the defendant fell in with the Wrong Crowd and so started offending. Never do we hear that the defendant himself is actually part of that crowd, responsible for corrupting the youth of the land and running graduate courses in violent disorder, supplying drugs and handling stolen goods.

Where do they come from? Where do they hang out? Is it at that other great unknown place often referred to in the criminal justice system '“ a young offenders' institute? It is sweet really that there is an institute, where presumably they meet up and chat about, well, young offending, and no doubt there is a social committee and a wine committee and lecture series and so on; presumably application for membership is pretty stiff, but once you are in it is worth it.

So, in these tricky times, a solution: appoint the ushers as the tribunals of fact, and send the police round to the nearest young offenders' institute to arrest the Wrong Crowd on one of their club nights. Then get the ushers to decide how wrong they are, send the really wrong ones to a young offenders institution, and put the others on a tag.

See? It's easy. I should get paid for this, you know.