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Judge law courts for yourself

In Newark tomorrow between 10am and 4pm local residents will have an opportunity to see inside one of the town's oldest institutions when Newark Magistrates' Court holds its first Open Day.

Although most of the present building in Magnus Street dates only from the Sixties, the history of judicial courts in Newark may be traced back over 900 years to the time of the Domesday Book.

The earliest kind of court known to have been held in Newark dates from Anglo-Saxon times and was known as a Halimote or hall moote.

This was a manorial court and was operated under the private jurisdiction of the Lord of the Manor.

In Newark this was the Bishop of Lincoln who built the castle.

While the moot mainly concerned itself with disputes over land rentals or the degree to which tenants owed a duty of labour to their lord, the bishop did also hold the right of infrangenthef - the right to judge any thief taken within the manor and to exact punishment by means of fines, the pillory, or even the gallows.

Examples of 14th Century offences include allowing pigs to wander loose in the streets, and a resident's failure to maintain his portion of the common sewer.

And on one occasion no fewer than seven individuals were prosecuted for throwing sordida or filthe on to the highway in Millgate.

It is believed that the bishop held his court in a building in the Market Place (probably close to the church) known as the aula placitorum or hall of pleas.

It is possible that it stood on the site of Newark's Moot Hall, now occupied by Curry's. It was not until the 14th and 15th Centuries that manorial courts such as that held in Newark began to decline.

Changes in the country's legal system had already seen the introduction in 1361 of the first Justices of the Peace and, as time progressed, the first recognisable steps were taken towards the establishment of local magistrates' courts.

It was after the granting of Newark's Charter in 1549 that the Corporation began to hold its own court with the mayor and senior aldermen acting as magistrates.

As officials of the Crown they took on responsibility for keeping the peace and enforcing both statute law as issued by parliament and the common law of the land.

This left the old manorial court to continue with its decisions over property rights and tolls payable to the Lord of the Manor.

This curious system, whereby two courts operated side by side, continued in Newark until as recently as 1837 when the Corporation finally bought out the then Lord of the Manor (the Duke of Newcastle) and took over his judicial role.

It is thought possible that Newark Borough magistrates first held their courts in the old guildhall in Guildhall Street. But in the late 18th Century they moved into the newly completed Town Hall.

Here were heard cases which, despite appearing minor by today's standards, were often considered punishable by the full weight of the law.

In the 18th Century pilloryings and whippings were commonplace, and transportation to prison colonies abroad could be invoked for the most trivial offences.

James Clewes of Newark was in 1827 sentenced to seven years' transportation for stealing a hat from the Clinton Arms Hotel. Changes in the way the law was administered in England were instituted in 1828 when Petty Sessional courts were introduced.

The Newark Borough bench dealt with offences committed in the town and the Newark County bench with those from surrounding villages.

More serious cases were heard at the Quarter Sessions (borough cases in the Town Hall and county cases in the present courtroom and the Magnus Buildings.

The most serious crimes were referred to the Assize court in Nottingham to be tried before a royal judge on progress.

Quarter Sessions and Assizes continued until 1972 when their judicial role was replaced by the Crown Court. In 1974 the Newark borough and county benches were combined.

In 1978 the Southwell bench was merged with Newark, bringing into existence the Newark and Southwell Petty Sessional Division - the area covered by today's Magistrates' Court in Newark.

Magistrates courts continue to play a vital role in dealing with crime at the local level. Sadly no official record survives of the cases heard by Newark Borough magistrates in their early years, but the pages of the Advertiser more than make up for this in more recent times.

Here are recorded both the changing nature of crime and the punishments considered appropriate.

In August 1912, for instance, the court heard of a drunken brawl in Taylor's Yard off Albion Street during which one of the participants' ears was half bitten off.

The magistrates sentenced the main protagonist to six weeks in prison with hard labour and his neighbour to 21 days. In another case from 1914 a bout of malicious vandalism against three Newark maltkilns resulted in a 17-year-old youth being sent to prison for 28 days.

The magistrates said that they would have preferred to send him to a Borstal Institution for a year or have him whipped, but at 17 he was too old for either punishment.

As recently as 1920, the Newark bench considered corporal punishment suitable for a boy of 13 who stole three tins of condensed milk and a bottle of raisin wine from warehouses at Northgate railway station.

He was given six strokes of the birch.

In addition to dealing with criminal cases, magistrates courts have always played a vital role in civil jurisdiction - the granting of liquor licences to pubs, clubs and restaurants for instance, and, in more recent times, the establishment of special panels to decide issues of child residence and contact.

In Newark the present court rota accounts for six main half-day sessions a week involving a complement of 42 unpaid magistrates.

New recruits, however, are always required, and part of the raison d'etre behind tomorrow's Open Day is to attract more applications from people willing to train as magistrates.

It is the aim of the magistracy to include representatives from all walks of life, and while no formal qualifications are required, applicants do have to undertake considerable training. Magistrates' courts deal with about 98% of all criminal proceedings to their conclusion.

Even the remaining 2%, the most serious cases which go to the Crown Court and feature in the national press, have their first hearing before a bench of local JPs.

It is fitting, therefore, that through tomorrow's open day the work of these highly trained yet entirely voluntary members of the community should receive wider publicity and acknowledgement.

In compiling this article I am indebted to Mr Michael Honeybone of the University of Nottingham's Department of Continuing Education and Mr Adrian Henstock, Principal Archivist at the Nottinghamshire Archives Office.

ABOVE: This is a defendant's-eye view of Newark's No.1 courtroom. It is built in the round, which is rare if not unique in this country. On the Bench are six holy books on which witnesses of various faiths can take the oath: Chinese Christian, Christian, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim and Sikh.

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