Day 314 - Wednesday 8th March 2006 - Sentencing Day
The sentencing at court today was on my mind all night and I had a bad night's sleep. kp slept very well. I got up at 5am, sick of just lying awake in bed. Unusually, kp was up early as well, and we had breakfast at around 8am.
kp went back to bed as I went off to court, with Michelle, Freddy and Adele due to arrive at 11am to look after kp when she woke up.
I have only ever been in Crown Court before, so was interested to see what Magistrates Court was like. Not that impressive. A small square room, 3 magistrates at the front, and about 7 or 8 other court people (including the solicitors dotted around). There were only 5 seats for the public, so Angela, hubby and I shared 2 seats between the 3 of us.
Angela's uncle attended and being a policeman he knew how these things worked and sorted out some time with us with the prosecuting solicitor so we could get across to him what all the injuries were. A good move.
There were a couple of cases before ours and they were in and out within 5 minutes. Sounded like a criminal damage and a skally who was banned from the Metro Centre.
Our case kicked off right on time at about 10.30am. Here is the order of play.....
The chap was called in to the court and he looked ghostly. Never seen such a shade of grey :-(
It started with the crown prosecution solicitor stating the facts of the accident. He went in to the extent of damage, upset, police time and injuries caused. It was quite stirring when Kevin, Angela and Karen's injuries were read out. I think kp would have got upset at that point. This lasted about 10 minutes. At some point, our chap made reference to the fact Angela was in court. The defendant never looked back AT ALL throughout the whole thing.
It was then the turn of the defendants solicitor. He submitted letters of reference from his doctor, another magistrate and some other party. The magistrates retired to read these through for about 10 minutes. In that time, another case was heard.
When they returned, the defendant's solicitor stated his side of things. To be fair, he acknowledged the severity of the case, but he did say it could happen to any of us. One thing he said slapped Angela and I across the face, namely.......
Defendant's solicitor :- Dangerous Driving has many levels of "dangerous". This case has to be one of the lesser forms of Dangerous Driving. The defendant hadn't stolen the car, he wasn't evading police etc etc....
Of course, he had a point, but it still was a bit of a slap.
When he had made his case, he submitted pre-sentence reports stating how the defendant was a broken man, suffering from depression. He had a completely clean driving licence and basically was a model citizen apart from this.
The magistrates then retired again to work out what they were going to do. They were gone a LONG time (45 mins), apparently quite unusual, for magistrates court according to the defendant's solicitor. I was pleased they were taking so long over it, instead of just writing it off. I would like to think our presence in the court probably made them think of the importance of the whole thing to us.
The result was read out by the middle magistrates and is listed in the previous blog entry.
kp is numb to the whole thing and seems very subdued tonight. I suspect it will take her a while to digest today and if there are tears, knowing kp, they will come in a day or so. She was due to go out for a meal tonight with Sue (ex work colleague), but we cancelled. Sue was very understanding.
When I got home from the court, I told kp all about it. Michelle and co still hadn't arrived. I think they got here about 30 minutes after I arrived. Michelle brought lunch which was nice.
Lovely bread, Ham, Pies, Eclairs.
We had a nice lunch together, but then kp had to go to bed, and because of my early start, I was more than happy to go with her. We felt very guilty leaving all our guests, but sleep definately beckoned.
Interesting Day, leaving a very subdued kp. :-(
I'll leave today's blog entry with a funny photo. Louisa (2) saw me eating a ham and mustard sandwich and said she wanted some of what I was eating (pointing at the mustard).
I was happy to oblige and put a tiny bit on a piece of bread. The result was a strange face with mustard pasted bread fully visible........
And a nice bit of chewed bread and mustard being spat out subsequently.
kp went back to bed as I went off to court, with Michelle, Freddy and Adele due to arrive at 11am to look after kp when she woke up.
I have only ever been in Crown Court before, so was interested to see what Magistrates Court was like. Not that impressive. A small square room, 3 magistrates at the front, and about 7 or 8 other court people (including the solicitors dotted around). There were only 5 seats for the public, so Angela, hubby and I shared 2 seats between the 3 of us.
Angela's uncle attended and being a policeman he knew how these things worked and sorted out some time with us with the prosecuting solicitor so we could get across to him what all the injuries were. A good move.
There were a couple of cases before ours and they were in and out within 5 minutes. Sounded like a criminal damage and a skally who was banned from the Metro Centre.
Our case kicked off right on time at about 10.30am. Here is the order of play.....
The chap was called in to the court and he looked ghostly. Never seen such a shade of grey :-(
It started with the crown prosecution solicitor stating the facts of the accident. He went in to the extent of damage, upset, police time and injuries caused. It was quite stirring when Kevin, Angela and Karen's injuries were read out. I think kp would have got upset at that point. This lasted about 10 minutes. At some point, our chap made reference to the fact Angela was in court. The defendant never looked back AT ALL throughout the whole thing.
It was then the turn of the defendants solicitor. He submitted letters of reference from his doctor, another magistrate and some other party. The magistrates retired to read these through for about 10 minutes. In that time, another case was heard.
When they returned, the defendant's solicitor stated his side of things. To be fair, he acknowledged the severity of the case, but he did say it could happen to any of us. One thing he said slapped Angela and I across the face, namely.......
Defendant's solicitor :- Dangerous Driving has many levels of "dangerous". This case has to be one of the lesser forms of Dangerous Driving. The defendant hadn't stolen the car, he wasn't evading police etc etc....
Of course, he had a point, but it still was a bit of a slap.
When he had made his case, he submitted pre-sentence reports stating how the defendant was a broken man, suffering from depression. He had a completely clean driving licence and basically was a model citizen apart from this.
The magistrates then retired again to work out what they were going to do. They were gone a LONG time (45 mins), apparently quite unusual, for magistrates court according to the defendant's solicitor. I was pleased they were taking so long over it, instead of just writing it off. I would like to think our presence in the court probably made them think of the importance of the whole thing to us.
The result was read out by the middle magistrates and is listed in the previous blog entry.
kp is numb to the whole thing and seems very subdued tonight. I suspect it will take her a while to digest today and if there are tears, knowing kp, they will come in a day or so. She was due to go out for a meal tonight with Sue (ex work colleague), but we cancelled. Sue was very understanding.
When I got home from the court, I told kp all about it. Michelle and co still hadn't arrived. I think they got here about 30 minutes after I arrived. Michelle brought lunch which was nice.
Lovely bread, Ham, Pies, Eclairs.
We had a nice lunch together, but then kp had to go to bed, and because of my early start, I was more than happy to go with her. We felt very guilty leaving all our guests, but sleep definately beckoned.
Interesting Day, leaving a very subdued kp. :-(
I'll leave today's blog entry with a funny photo. Louisa (2) saw me eating a ham and mustard sandwich and said she wanted some of what I was eating (pointing at the mustard).
I was happy to oblige and put a tiny bit on a piece of bread. The result was a strange face with mustard pasted bread fully visible........
And a nice bit of chewed bread and mustard being spat out subsequently.
posted by David Pollard at Wednesday, March 08, 2006
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