John Upton

To enter Greenwich Magistrates Court you must first go through an airport-style metal detector which squeals at the slightest provocation. The Court is a small Victorian building with wood-panelled court rooms that lead off a waiting area with a mosaic floor. A few rows of green metal seats are bolted to this floor and there is a drinks machine in one corner. To find out which court room you are appearing in, you have to look at the printed lists which are pinned up on one of the walls. There are no specific times given for hearings so when you get to appear in court is a matter of luck, persistence and whether your client (or lawyer, if you’re a client) turns up early or not. The atmosphere in an old court like this is best likened to that of an understaffed Accident and Emergency Department in which none of the patients wants to be treated.

There are now two Stephen Lawrences. The first, the murdered 18-year-old victim of racism. The second, a cultural balloon with Stephen Lawrence’s image on it: a balloon so large there is barely any space left in which to think objectively about Lawrence, his murder and the subsequent investigations and Inquiry.

‘Some day they’re gonna write a blues song for fighters. It’ll just be for slow guitar, soft trumpet and a bell.’ So said Sonny Liston in 1962, after he’d beaten his closest rival, Floyd Patterson, and become Heavyweight Champion of the World. Liston was not known for his sensitivity. Indeed, the facts of his life read like a blueprint for a Hollywood film of the flawed fighter. He was born in Arkansas, the 24th of 25 children. He never knew the date or exact place of his birth, and he was illiterate. He was sent out to work in the fields at the age of eight, picking cotton, peanuts and sweet potato. He was beaten prodigiously by his father and the welts he received were still visible on his adult body. When his mother left Arkansas to find work in St Louis he followed her, but he was unable to hold down a job and turned to crime. By the age of 16 Liston was over six feet tall and weighed more than 200 pounds. He was violent as well as strong and earned his first title, that of ‘Number One Negro’ on the St Louis police wanted list, in 1949. In 1950, he was convicted of armed robbery (his haul was $37). He was introduced to boxing at the Missouri State Penitentiary.‘

We’re all used to watching gritty TV dramas about the crown court with bewigged barristers, mumbling judges and gullible juries. These higher courts are familiar to us and if we were actually to visit them, we would recognise the courtroom (‘Not as good as in Kavanagh’) the waiting area (‘Tosh from The Bill was in one a bit like this last week’) and the formalities (‘It’s just the same as in Rumpole’), but the magistrates’ court is different. It is the place where summary justice is dispensed. If the offence you have committed is not serious enough to merit a trip to the crown court, and the vast majority of offences are not, the magistrates’ court is where your case will be heard. In fact the great majority of cases are dealt with by magistrates. This means that either three lay people or one professional magistrate (a stipendiary or ‘stipe’, as the lawyers call them) listen to your case, decide whether it is proven or not and pass sentence. This is where I am today.

We might well think of 2000 as the year of emotional justice. In Private Eye last month a cartoon of a suited man being chased by a group of youths bore the caption: ‘I’m a paediatrician.’ That same week, a woman was besieged in her home by a group of youths who daubed the word ‘Paedo’ on her wall. She was of course a paediatrician. Whichever way we turn, we see populist measures outlined or tabled by politicians, populist judgments delivered in the courts, and unthinking, vengeful behaviour on the ground. Two cases stand out: those of Myra Hindley and Sarah Payne. In both public fury has prevailed over fairness, the interests of the bereaved over those of the community as a whole.‘