It’s 11am at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and a defendant is shouting at the court staff patiently waiting outside courtroom eight. The morning’s proceedings – which should have started an hour earlier – have been delayed as only three of the 14 people due to appear before the district judge have bothered to show up. However, this defendant – a middle-aged man in a blue polo shirt and shorts, with glasses perched on the top of his head – has arrived on time. He is becoming increasingly agitated that the court’s schedule isn’t as prompt. “It’s a joke,” he says, “this country is a joke.”
For the 677 people (at the time of writing) who have been charged by the police for their alleged involvement in the riots that spread across the country in the wake of the murder of three young girls in Southport on 29 July, a trip to the magistrates’ court is on the cards. This is the first step on the journey through the British justice system, and it is certainly the least glamorous. Cases are frequently delayed, and defendants must often represent themselves due to a lack of duty solicitors (lawyers whose job it is to represent those appearing in court who don’t have their own solicitor). There can be a lot of waiting around. This is compounded by the ongoing and increasing backlog currently facing the UK’s 330 magistrates’ courts. In November 2023, there were 370,090 outstanding cases, up from 340,102 in November 2022.
On Friday 16 August, eight cases relating to the “Enough is Enough” protest which kicked off on Whitehall on the evening of 31 July appear before the district judge Louisa Ciecióra, in varying degrees of seriousness. More than 100 people were arrested that evening after protesters clashed with police officers during a demonstration in which flares were launched at the gates of Downing Street and chants of “stop the boats” and “save our kids” could be heard.
The day’s hearings are a sweeping palette of recent protest and public disorder from across the political spectrum. The hearings related to the Enough is Enough protest are interspersed with those of Just Stop Oil protesters, who arrive in court in walking boots and carrying tote bags. Some of them are accompanied by support officers – often from Climate Action Support Pathway – who can provide legal guidance and emotional support. Their clipboards snap shut as they carefully ensure their defendant has full knowledge of their rights and obligations.
The first Whitehall case to be heard on this particular morning is also the most serious. Kelly Wildego, 41, of Harrow Moorway, Greenwich, has been charged with assaulting an emergency worker and behaviour likely to cause harassment, alarm or distress. Wildego, a slim, tanned woman with mousy brown, slicked-back hair, appears in court accompanied by her father and daughter. She looks on the verge of tears as her charges are read to her by the clerk of the court (she pleads guilty to both). Her face crumples as she is addressed by the judge, and she remains quietly weeping throughout the hearing.
Jonathan Bryan, the duty prosecutor who is overseeing the day’s cases on behalf of the Crown Prosecution Service, explains that Wildego was among the crowd that poured into Westminster on 31 July. Bryan explains that as tensions escalated, the crowd began throwing bottles at officers patrolling the area and hurling abuse their way.
Wildego was one of them. Bryan explains that the officer who was assaulted could see Wildego among the crowd; she was shouting at the police “you should all be f***ing ashamed of yourselves”. She then took a few steps back, before running at the officer screaming “f***ing take me” and pushing him twice. She was swiftly arrested. A press photo from the incident shows an incensed Wildego, shouting furiously at officers, the veins in her neck distinct and visible. Another shows her pinned to the floor, while officers put her in handcuffs.
As Wildego has pled guilty, it is for the judge to decide whether she should be sentenced that day, or if her case is serious enough to be sent to the Crown Court. Before that decision is made, the court hears from Wildego’s solicitor who says that as a full-time carer to her disabled son, she is in receipt of universal credit and carer’s allowance, and her case should therefore be kept in the magistrates’ court where sentences are more lenient.
Judge Ciecióra does not see it that way: “I do not consider that this court’s powers of sentencing are sufficient,” she said. Magistrates’ courts have limited sentencing power and can often act on more junior crimes such as theft; the seriousness of Wildego’s charge meant it must be passed through to the Crown Court.
Wildego was sentenced on 19 August at Inner London Crown Court to a four-month suspended prison sentence, a leniency owing to her role as a full-time carer.
Throughout the morning, a trickle of cases appear before the court. One hearing is adjourned after the court staff are unable to locate the correct paperwork; all those involved must return next month to hear the conclusion of the case. Another takes almost half an hour to get going because the duty solicitor for the defence is nowhere to be seen. (It turned out they were completing a hearing in courtroom five.) No one is at fault for the stop-start nature of the day’s proceedings – it is obvious that there is a chronic lack of staff – but it is difficult to see how these conditions are conducive to an efficient delivery of justice.
In August 2011, when disorder of a similar scale last broke out on Britain’s streets, the justice system’s response was slick and swift. Courts sat for 24 hours a day (a move initiated by the then director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer) and by the middle of October, nearly half of the 4,000 people arrested had appeared before a judge. Today, a similar response is impossible. Courts are hearing fewer cases due to a 26 per cent reduction in the number of duty solicitors since 2017 owing to an unsustainable workload, low pay and ageing workforce. In some areas of the UK, there are fewer duty solicitors than there are days of the week. There would not be enough staff to keep a 24-hour cycle running. And as in the case of Wildego, magistrates’ courts often do not have the sentencing powers to deal with cases of this type so must pass them on to the Crown Court, leading to even more delays.
Comparisons with 2011 are perhaps misjudged: fewer people overall have been arrested (1,117) for the disorder that has taken place since 29 July. During the election campaign, Starmer pledged that his government would be tough on crime. Labour previously pledged to set up 80 new rape courts to tackle the 346 per cent increase in the backlog of adult rape cases. Solutions such as these likely won’t work if there aren’t enough lawyers to share the workload. Just as the riots have exposed the discontent and dark undercurrents running through a volatile minority of the country, they have also exposed the failures of the British justice system. It’s hard to ignore that it is on the brink of collapse.
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