Big Society

Lord Thomas of Gresford Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd November 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Thomas of Gresford]

My Lords, when I was a very new, young and arrogant solicitor, I frequently appeared in the magistrates' court in the village of Ruabon in north-east Wales, an industrial part of Wales where coal was mined, steel was made, beer was brewed and chemicals were manufactured. I was always amused by the chairman of the local Bench, Lord Maelor, a former Member of this House, formerly Thomas Jones, the Labour Member for Merioneth. He lived all his life in nearby Ponciau, having worked down the pit as a young man. He later served as a non-combatant in the First World War. Indeed, he was imprisoned in Wormwood Scrubs for refusing to obey an order on the grounds of conscience. In court, he always went out of his way to identify the defendant who was before him: “Was his uncle a member of Capel Mawr?”, “Did he live on Gutter Hill or was it Y Ffennant?” and so on.

Lord Maelor taught me two lessons. The first was that order is preserved in a community not by the police, but by the people: the elders, the relations and the parents. By far the worst area for vandalism and crime in the area was the brand new housing estate, Plas Madoc. It was so new that only young married people or partners lived there. Though they had moved in from the settled villages around, there were no rules, no frowns and no social disciplines in their community. The second lesson he taught me was that he would give youngsters a chance, but would follow through his sentences by his deep involvement in the community and by his continuity in office. He was the one you would come back before if you breached the probation order he was always ready to hand out.

I have been greatly helped in preparing for this debate by a study carried out by Dr Jane Donoghue of the Centre for Criminology at Oxford, which was published only last Saturday, 29 October, as Anti-Social Behaviour, Community Engagement and the Judicial Role in England and Wales. I commend the study to the Minister. She points out that a central principle of the concept of the big society is co-production: how communities and individuals connect and come together to design and produce solutions to shared problems.

In the context of the magistrates’ court, the informal mechanisms of the past—that individual relationship between the magistrates and the community they serve—are of limited value in today’s world. It appears that training designed by Her Majesty’s Courts Service and the Judicial Studies Board in 2008 to support magistrates in community engagement has not been systematically implemented. Dr Donoghue’s research shows that for the most part magistrates’ involvement does not go beyond attending occasional meetings with their local ASB unit. The reverse side of that coin is that community groups have very little engagement with the courts. They live in two separate worlds.

Participants from all the 17 ASB units studied expressed their disappointment and concern that magistrates so rarely engaged with the local community, and argued that a culture change was necessary, where magistrates would be required to allocate time to listen to the concerns of the local community. Some said that the courts do not think about the impact of an ASB on a community, that they do not understand the effect of ASBs on certain areas and that the community has no confidence in magistrates or the courts.

On the other side, it seems that some magistrates worry about judicial independence. Dr Donoghue found that in one area magistrates discontinued an existing practice of making visits because they were concerned not to be seen to be influenced by local residents. In only one of the 17 areas studied was it felt that magistrates had a high level of engagement with the local community and were willing to talk to residents, attend local meetings and become involved in the life of the community.

The other problem identified by Dr Donoghue’s research was a lack of supervision. Ten of the areas studied had no experience of any kind of the supervision of court orders by magistrates or district judges. This was because there was a significant lack of continuity between repeat offenders and sentencers. It is highly unlikely that an offender in breach of an order will be seen more than once by the same magistrate or district judge. There is no formal system in place to ensure that an offender appears before the same sentencer in every court hearing related to their case.

Dr Donoghue’s conclusion is that most courts have not yet embedded into their structure the principles of community justice. Magistrates still see their role as adjudicators of fact and meters out of punishment and no more. If the concept of the big society is to have flesh put upon its skeleton, community engagement and problem solving in partnership with community groups and agencies should become a formal, standardised part of a magistrate’s training and part of continuing professional development for existing district judges and magistrates.

Nobody could ever question the commitment of Lord Maelor to his community, and the result was this: clear confidence and trust in the Ruabon magistrates’ court by the whole community. He did not sit above the throng; he was a part of it, and it was a pleasure to appear before him, as I have no doubt the noble Lord, Lord Elystan-Morgan, would confirm if he were here.