An innovative pilot scheme that provides magistrates' courts in Staffordshire with direct access to the Police National Computer (PNC) has led to 680 offenders - who may not otherwise have been caught - being brought to justice in the past seven months, the Department for Constitutional Affairs announced last week.

Under the scheme, courts can track down offenders using information held on the PNC, including contact details, aliases, and names of associates. The court can also see other cases pending against the individual, past convictions and details of bail conditions.


Where offenders cannot be traced, the courts may circulate committal warrants and community penalty breach warrants on the PNC to make police aware that penalties issued by the court have been breached, provided that the name is already on their database.


The pilot is set to be rolled out to all magistrates' courts across the country by the autumn.


Peter Woolliscroft, justices' chief executive of the Staffordshire Magistrates Court Committee, said: 'Defendants who might previously have escaped punishment because they have moved to another part of the country are now being arrested and brought to justice.


'Magistrates see community penalty breaches being enforced far quicker and our enforcement staff know that if their enquiries locally prove abortive, the defendant's details can be circulated to all police force areas.'


Courts minister Christopher Leslie said: 'The beauty of this pilot project is that we don't have to re-invent the wheel. Magistrates' courts are able to tap into an existing police resource, making it a cost-effective way of tracing offenders as well as more effective.


'In addition, through circulating warrants on the PNC, the police have a fuller picture about habitual offenders and can therefore deal with them more effectively.'