As a local practitioner appearing frequently in the North Liverpool Community Justice Centre (NLCJC), I was interested to read your article of 6 December (see [2007] Gazette, 6 December, 22). While in full agreement with the praise for Judge Fletcher, and admiring the depth and funding of the resources available, justice is administered to the many in the city centre court. This comprises rundown 18th century buildings with no proper facilities for any of the users, including staff, lawyers, defendants and witnesses. When I first started in practice 30 years ago, we were promised a new magistrates' court building. No cornerstone has been set to date.


According to my arithmetic, if one factors in the set-up costs, together with annual running costs, and divides this by three times the average number of cases dealt with, one arrives at a figure of £1,652.17p for each low-level crime dealt with by the NLCJC. Generous funding indeed, considering defence practitioners are now paid £221.59 for every guilty plea (82% of the cases resolved before the court).



Solicitors now have to travel from Liverpool city centre to attend this suburban court, with no remuneration for the travel involved.



This is an expensive indulgence which, like the Public Defender Service, is bound to fail in the long term.



Julian Linskill, Linskills, Liverpool