James Morton recounts a time of tea and sandwiches, when matrons provided a woman's touch to court duties and bail was an open forum for negotiation

Early in my career in criminal advocacy, I was introduced to the cosy world of the court matrons - women who looked after the female prisoners and provided some sort of lunch for everyone in custody.

Importantly, they provided a meeting place for police and lawyers while we were waiting for our cases to be called.

Most matrons produced tea and some food for us.

Some were ex-policewomen and kept sparkling rooms; it was a treat to be fed at Highgate.

On the other hand, some matrons seemed to be rubbing lard on the court cat's boil with one hand while the other cut the sandwiches.

Years later I came across a particularly slatternly one.

It was a court at which I appeared frequently and I took the precaution of buying my own mug and keeping it in the gaoler's nearby room away from her washing up cloths.

One day she asked me to look over a letter she was writing.

At the time, the governor of a women's prison in an Australian TV soap had died and the matron, confusing life and art, was applying for the position.

'....

I have had many years experience as I will be able to tell you when I sees you.' Over the weeks and months she would say, 'I haven't heard from them yet, but my husband [who sat silently in a corner when he wasn't distributing single sheets of lavatory paper to the male prisoners on the gaoler's behalf] and I are ready to go on a moment's notice'.

In courts in which lay magistrates held sway the hearings started at 10am and there was often a coffee break at around 10.45.

Advocates and defendants were not expected to know this was happening and one woman chairman would announce 'we're going to look at the exhibits,' irrespective of whether there were any in the case.

Nor did they necessarily have coffee while they were making a decision.

They could retire to consider their verdict and then retire immediately afterwards to consider the Nescaf.

Everyone met for a social quarter of an hour and up to 20 advocates, let alone police officers would be paid while they did so.

In London, before the days of the Crown Prosecution Service, the police often conducted their own cases and certainly applications for remands.

Therefore, the matron's room was the place to find out whether there were objections to bail, and what convictions the client had as opposed to those he had admitted to you.

Clients tended to think that anything less than an immediate prison sentence was an acquittal and if the officer hadn't been seen first then serious embarrassment could arise for the unwary.

'My client is of good character?' 'No, he has seven previous convictions, shall I read out the last three, your worship?' Occasionally, it was the other way around.

One client told me he had three convictions but when I checked, the police had a record of only one.

I went back to the client.

'I was acquitted on the other two,' he said cheerily.

The matron's room provided an opportunity to sort these things out and to see how the police would oppose bail.

Just as there were various methods of conducting a search, so too there were various levels of objecting to bail.

If the client agreed to a week's lay-down in custody then the police might not object to bail the following week or, if they did, it would be purely formal.

Generally, these rules were observed.

The week's lay-down also allowed time for the client's family to get hold of one of the go-betweens who were trusted by both sides.

In some cases, they would intercede and discuss financial rewards that would be available for the watering down of an opposition to bail - or watering down the evidence for that matter.

It would be quite obvious if the fix had gone in.

The officer would go in the witness box and make his objections on standard grounds, the first of which was the likelihood of the client absconding.

This could be countered by showing a stable background so that chummy was not going to vanish on the night ferry to Calais leaving a red-eyed missus and a string of ankle- biters behind.

'Mr Jones has a fixed address?'

'Yes sir, a flat in Kilburn, nothing ostentatious but clean and neat.'

'And a wife?'

'Yes sir, Mrs Jones is in court today.' Nodding from the magistrates.

'And children?'

'Yes sir, two lovely clean kids sir, and I think from what Mr Jones said there's one on the way.' More approving nods from the lay justices.

Of course, this was all going to be good mitigation in a couple of weeks' time when Jones decided there was no hope in fighting the case.

Meanwhile, just as any sensible businessman away for a few weeks would stop the milk or cancel the papers, he needed to make preparations for his absence.

Preparations of a different kind perhaps - someone to watch his wife didn't stray, a bit of money earned to be put aside for her, someone to hold the finances for her - but preparations nevertheless.

However, so far as the bail application was concerned, the officer's money was banked, whatever the fool bench might decide.

Now he could go back to his superior and blame the granting of bail on the woodentops who had heard the case.

James Morton is a former criminal law specialist solicitor and now a freelance journalist