To Be A Magistrate For An Hour, Like I ...

There are thousands of British Magistrates trying hundreds of thousands of cases each year at every city, town and village across the United Kingdom. The cases are petty for the most part like taking an 11 year old boy to court for stealing a nail worth one penny!! Or another stealing half a pork roll at age 13. Such has become the all-embracing propensity of the police to take even the pettiest offense to court to meet the ever-growing demands of government targets to be met for this or that. While children cannot be spanked or caned like they should be for minor misdeeds, today's philosophy is to drag such kidz to court and spend thousands
of pounds each time in determining what to do to them for such petty infractions of stealing a nail or half a pork roll. Or locking up old age pensioners who cannot afford to pay the rip-off council tax increases every year. It's alot easier for magistrates, also known as lay judges or justices, to jail gentle pensioners than violent young punks ...
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Yet at the same time, the criminal justice system in England survives only by the widespread use of magistrates who are not trained lawyers but just plain English middle class for the most part. And while they busy themselves imposing their punishments on the people for petty crimes, the same government cannot keep tabs on illegal aliens, foreigners and immigrants that have committed such major crimes as molesting our children, raping our women, and breaking into our homes!! Many get lost in the system and although recommended for deportation in such major crime cases, they slip through the dragnet and live happily evermore in Great Britain until they are caught again for some other criminal offense (s).
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In the mean time, the British prison system is close to collapse under the weight of so many stuffed inside the walls of private run prisons. No, for-profit, private business or enterprise should be allowed to be in the business of incarceration. Reliance and Serco are two such companies that have a vested interest in profiting more and more at garishing more numbers of those being imprisoned at the drop of hat in all too many cases it seems to me for petty crimes. White trash are those more likely to be imprisoned than the richer, middle
and upper classes, under the Magistrates court system. Essentially, too, the so-called minorities who commit crime tend to be given the benefit of the doubt.
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So with this in mind, I was more than delighted to be a magistrate for one hour at the behest of the Magistrates Association during the forum3 major charity event just held today at Islington's Business Design Center.
With Ellie Thompson and Paul Drakakis (not their real names!), we sat on the bench together to determine two real cases that had been handled by the Magistrates Court of recent date. Terry Ball, 27, plead guilty to actual bodily harm of bus driver Martin Smedley after a fracas took place on the bus in which Terry Ball was drunk with his three friends at 10:30 in the morning. A father of two kidz and living in a new, detached house, after working full-time for the past 6 years at an established IT company, he admitted to the police what he had done. He'd been identified by the ubiquitous CCTV after he and his buddies had ran off the bus, but not before Terry Ball had verbally abused the driver and then pushed him that resulted, so we as magistrates were informed, in a slight concussion and four stitches for Martin Smedley after he fell. "What's your sentence?," we were asked in dealing with Terry Ball's admitted offense.
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As we sat together to decide what we as magistrates for an hour would do,
I determined that the offender should be fined £500-, £250- compensation, and made to pay court costs. I was curious that he and his friends were drunk at ten thirty in the morning on what I assume was a work day for them. He had no previous criminal record did Terry Ball, but he and his friends had earlier, on the same bus, been very abusive to three girls who went downstairs to complain to the driver. He in turn
stopped the bus and order the four drunks off the bus. That's when the driver got pushed and then he fell.
I had no sympathy for Terry Ball and his gang of drunks. In fact, I would support the complete ban on drinking in public places. I am sick and tired of seeing drunken spew all over the sidewalks or pavements in London thesedays. There's way too much binge drinking, too. I oppose all drinking and alcohol, personally.
I cannot stand the smell of drunkz or the way they behave so obnoxiously. They're a disgrace, frankly!!
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The other case was of 18 year-old Gareth Marks, who also pleaded guilty to actual bodily harm. He had been
in the pub with his girlfriend when four young guyz came in and started making suggestive and abusive remarks directed at Gareth's girlfriend and him. As magistrates, that was still me, Ellie Thompson and Paul Drakakis, we were then informed of how Gareth Marks endured 45 minutes of constant rude comments from the young turks!! He finally snapped and lost his temper and then punched the alleged ringleader, "who suffered a split lip and bruising the jaw" from Gareth's anger. We were not told if his girlfriend had "egged" him on, but my sympathy lay with him. What kind of guy could be expected to take such verbal abuse and insinuations about him and his girlfriend from four troublemakers (that, I'm sure they were) without reacting after such three quarter's of an hour provocation and degradation unless he was some kind of whimp or simple coward? No, I wasn't as a magistrate going to send Gareth Marks down, but rather I sentenced him to a conditional discharge. Unlike Terry Ball, Gareth Marks was more sinned against than sinned in my view. I could imagine his anger and how he lost his temper. Almost justifiably, I felt, based on the facts of case we were given to determine our sentence.
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Usually there are three magistrates on the bench with one of them being made chairman (or chairwoman) during court hearings. On points of law or procedure, the magistrates consult legal counsel to the court and there upon act accordingly in determining the outcome of the case against the accused or defendant. If the alleged crime is a serious one, the court can remand the case to be handled by higher judges with greater sentencing powers beyond that of what magistrates can impose.
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To be a magistrate for an hour, like I was, was fascinating and educational for me. "Magistrates in the Community" promotes such realistic encounters for those who might well want to become full-pledged magistrates at some point. At West London Magistrates' and County Court, 181 Talgarth Road, London W6, on Saturday Nov. 3rd, from 10:00am until 3:00pm. They'll also have an OPEN DAY for you to come and judge yourself like I did with the Magistrates Assocation. At the open day, Floella Benjamim, OBE., will open the proceedings. You can take part in mock trials, have photos of you in the dock or police cell, and you kidz can even put your parents in the dock!! While this is a fun way to learn about the justice system, it is also deadly serious since the life and freedom of the accused is at stake by the actions of those we entrust with running our courts not matter at what judicial level they act.
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What I learned today that even with such imaginary power to convict and sentence, I felt I was some how
so important in deciding the fate of those standing accused of crime(s) in my midst. It is so easy to think
of what you would do if you became a regular magistrate, week in and week out. I think we want to look tough against the criminals, but the real question is who are the real criminals anyway? And are magistrates' courts becoming obsolete and relics of the past in our modern society that need to be replaced by new types of justice models? But then, what is justice? Is there really such a thing as "justice" no matter what we say?
I personally have little or no faith in so-called justice. It's simply a mindset or mental condition of folkz who believe there is such a thing as justice no matter how elusive in reality it is ... I order the close of this post
of mine here and now as your resident magistrate for the past hour. Kudos everybody from your
"Magistrate Monty." +St. Gertude, 2oo7.

Now this word from the United States of America ...
MONTY, IF ONLY OTHER BLOGS WOULD SPEAK SO CLEARLY LIKE YOUR'S I'D BE SO HAPPY READING THEM. YOU ARE A TALENTED WRITER. YOU SAY WHAT'S ON YOUR MIND WITHOUT BEATING AROUND THE BUSH (NO PUN, INTENDED). I LOVE YOUR STYLE, YOUR BLOG, YOUR PHOTOS, AND YOUR MESSAGES. ARE YOU AN AMERICAN? YOU WRITE LIKE ONE I THINK. WHATEVER, I GUESS YOU KNOW THE BRITISH ISLES. WHAT'S ALL THIS ABOUT ITS DECLINE? IT SOUNDS SO BAD. I THOUGHT THE ENGLISH WERE A FINE LOT LAST TIME I VISITED THERE. THAT'S YEARS AGO. TIMES HAVE CHANGED AS THEY SAY. WHAT I LIKE MOST ABOUT YOUR BLOG, MONTY, IS YOU DON'T APOLOGISE FOR WHAT YOU SAY AND THINK. GOOD FOR US TO KNOW THAT. Louis Austin, Fairlee, Vermont, USA.

Attending, like I did, the UK's largest recruitment and volunteering event for British and overseas charities, hosted by forum3, I found it was quite clinical in its representation of about 130 exhibitors from Raleigh International to Terrence Higgins Trust to The Jesuits to Servite Houses and anti-sex trafficing. There's an old saying that "charity should begin at home!" True, but Britian is awash with 190.000 registered charities that has a combined income of £40 billion per annum. There are also over 900.000 charity trustees of various kinds involved in voluntary trusteeships for such charities.

Are there too many charities in the UK? Of course, there is!! The UK must have more charities per population than any other country in the world. And what are some of these charities really doing other than I suspect "doing" or "making charity" to feed themselves first and their paid underlings. Unpaid volunteers simply provide more profit for these so-called "not-for-profit" entities that, I feel, are more or less manipulating and exploiting government charity rules and regulations to their own profitable advantage. Everywhere I go in London there are those "chuggers," I think they call them, rounding on you for you to give to their particular outfit that claims charity status. They get handsome commissions I understand and they get paid well above the hourly national minimum wage as an added bonus.

Millions and millions of pounds are raised for every conceivable cause no matter how dubious or sallow some of them are. Where does all the money go? All too much of it goes into the pockets of charities to pay their overcosts, wages, administration expenditures, and fancy transport expenses, before a dime of it reaches the people or program the money was intended for by the giver.

Charity shops are also a racket in the UK or what are called "thrift stores" in America. A few weeks ago I was in a SCOPE Charity Shop on Walworth Road. I complained about the price of the small bookcase at £35.00 that was almost identical to one I had bought at the same charity shop just a year ago for 5 quid! Yet, now they wanted 35 quid for pretty much the same thing. The woman at SCOPE berated me for complaining saying that as a charity they needed to raise all the money they could. I was a "cold and disgruntled customer" according to her for daring to say I thought the bookcase price was a rip-off. She spouted out about how they were helping disabled children afflicted with blindness or whatever it was and that she had no intention of apologising for such prices "to help the sad children." I told her to stop hiding behind such tear-jerking about such kidz in order to extract more money from the duped public. She became livid, especially after I told that I was a "two-legged, walking, talking charity all of my own" since I sell The Big Issue as a vunerable person to raise needed funds to live. She then stood with her mouth ajar and said nothing further to me ... Then there is the true rip-off charity shop of the British Heart Foundation on Old Kent Road. There I was charged 40 quid when I desparately needed a fold-up bed for my then new sheltered housing. Days later I found the same bed for a mere 15 quid that the BHF charity shop had charged me 40 quid for. They even had the nerve to try to charge me an extra £12.50 for delivery!! I rolled the bed back to where I was with the help of two friends. When I asked if they had any plastic to cover the bed due to the heavy rain outside, we waited almost twenty minutes before the charity shop worker came back with a piece of plastic with holes that covered just the head board of the bed and nothing more ... How charitable was the BHF smelly skunk! I vowed from that day on I would never buy at thing more from any BHF charity shop no matter what ... And, that's what I have done!

So the forum3 event demonstrated the growth industry that is charity. Just like poverty is also a growth industry where profit comes first to those who are so-called fighting poverty at the expense of those who give and more tragically for those who are actually suffering from poverty itself. The bumper sticker that I saw in San Francisco a few years ago stated: "Hospital Are Dangerous For Your Health"
and how so true that is, too! I think then I should now design my own bumper sticker that states: "Charities Are Dangerous For Your Financial Health." Your's, Alex Albion.