Court closure to cause 'havoc' for vulnerable children

As with so much in life, the big story of the week - the death of the Queen Mother - had a legal angle to it.

The Guardian reported how the Court of Appeal, High Court, Crown Court and county courts would not sit on the day of the Queen Mother's funeral 'as a mark of respect' (5 April).

However, this news was greeted with dismay by family lawyers, who predicted that the day's closure would cause 'havoc', as 'vulnerable children in care could have decisions about their future delayed for months'.

The average time to get to court in a children's case is apparently 'nine to 12 months', and Liz Goldthorpe, chairwoman of the Association of Lawyers for Children, argued that 'it's not a question of a case being rescheduled for the following week - this will cause delays of months, and I would think that was unacceptable'.

Relying on the old 'it's what she would have wanted' trick, Ms Goldthorpe asked: 'I wonder what the Queen Mother would have thought - I'm sure she wouldn't have wanted to have decisions about the lives of some of our most vulnerable children delayed as a mark of respect'.

Courts were the centre of attention elsewhere, as The Guardian's Blake Morrison spent a day in the public gallery at Bexley magistrates' court observing the 'conveyor belt of human weakness and misery', or more aptly 'the ultimate unedited human docusoap, put out for free in every large town' (4 April).

Although troubled by questions such as 'why are defence solicitors usually young and Celtic in origin? Where did all those young female clerks of the court learn to be so bossy? And when a man gives his address as a pub, is it sensible to remand him there?', Mr Morrison concluded that 'for all its muddle and slowness, the current system works pretty well'.

In terms of magistrates themselves, 'a burning desire to change the world or bring back the birch isn't something you mention on your application form - more useful is a high tolerance for boredom and frustration'.

Despite the endless stream of traffic offences - 'on the evidence of this court, no one in south London bothers with insurance, least of all minicab drivers' - lay magistrates seemed to maintain a desire to help.

As one said: 'When an offender comes round for the third or fourth time, and you've tried everything, you feel helpless.

Chances are they're more sad than bad, and you want to find the right solution - but what can you do?'

Conspiracy theory was the order of the day in The Times last week, with speculation that it is not just the professions which are jumpy over the spotlight cast by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) (5 April).

Noting the leap in numbers of new silks appointed this year, The Times commented wryly that it comes ahead of the OFT's latest report on competition in the professions.

'For the past decade the total of new silks has averaged 70 - evidence, some say, of an unofficial quota,' it said.

This year the total elected was 113, and the paper pointedly asked: 'Does the Lord Chancellor suspect that the OFT will criticise the apparent ceiling on the number of silks appointed each year?'

Victoria MacCallum