On my daily walk to court, clear plastic bags with yellow tags on the pavement were a telltale sign that I was nearing the building. The bags – that had contained personal possessions – had been discarded by people released from court custody. For 40 days I sat as an observer in the remand court of a south coast magistrates’ court as part of my PhD studies. My research examined the revolving cycle of homeless defendants in the lower criminal court. The remand court hears cases involving defendants who have been denied police bail and detained – ‘remanded’ – overnight in police custody.
One of the lasting impressions of my experience gathering courtroom data – apart from the hard wooden benches, frosty ushers frequently asking, “and you are?” and hours of inaction – was the sidelining, exclusion and marginalisation of defendants. Individuals in the remand court are accompanied by one or two dock officers into a secure glass dock that dominates one side of the courtroom. Once in the dock defendants are told by the legal advisor to remain standing and to give their name, date of birth and address (if they have one) to the court through a tiny gap in the plexiglass. Defendants are then asked to sit down, placing them not only within a box but also at a distance beyond normal face-to-face conversation. This physical separation and exclusion from the rest of the court clearly interferes with the defendant’s ability to hear what is being said and communicate with the court.
It was common for interruptions by defendants to the smooth flow of ‘speedy justice’ in the magistrates’ court to be met with obstruction. Efforts by defendants to address the court and participate in the proceedings were routinely silenced by various court actors. Legally represented defendants who tried to participate in proceedings were regularly told “you have your solicitor speaking for you, please don’t say anything.” Unrepresented defendants unaware of when to speak were often told not to interrupt, to sit down and to be quiet by the chair or the legal advisor. One unrepresented defendant who made a number of attempts to address the court and spoke out of turn was repeatedly told to ‘shoosh’ by both the legal advisor and the chair. The irate chair eventually pointed his finger at the defendant shouting, “No! you cannot speak now.”
I also observed defendants who appeared uninterested in their court hearings, resigned perhaps to being unable to hear, participate or follow proceedings. They preferred instead to talk to the dock-officers. A homeless defendant charged with disorderly behaviour was completely disconnected from the proceedings as he spent the whole hearing chatting and laughing with the dock officers. In another case the defendant was almost asleep in the dock and unaware of what was going on around her. When defendants disengaged and were only passive bystanders of their fate, this apathy or resignation led to them seeming invisible.
In fact, from my observations it was the dock officers who played a significant role in assisting defendant participation – telling the defendant when to stand up, when to sit down, when to leave the dock. I sometimes also heard the dock officer explaining the outcome of a case to the defendant who either hadn’t heard the chair well or hadn’t understood the sentence given. In one case after the chair pronounced a sentence of a financial penalty, the confused defendant asked, “am I going to prison?”
Observing from the back of the court I noted how the formality of the court process, complex legal language, and camaraderie between the court actors created an us-and-them divide between court professionals and lay court users. At times when the bench had retired I overheard interactions and throwaway remarks between legal professionals that displayed a lack of respect and humility towards individual defendants. Moments before a defendant who had recently been made homeless and was living on the streets was called up from the cells, his solicitor relayed a private conversation he had had with his client to the court professionals around him. “All he keeps asking me is to find him a home …. I’ve given him a choice of properties, and he has chosen a penthouse overlooking the sea,” to which everyone laughed.
Another case involved a female defendant of no fixed abode who was charged with breaching a Criminal Behaviour Order that prohibited begging. Whilst the court waited for the defendant to appear in the dock, the probation officer referred to her as a ‘frequent flyer.’ Grabbing the nearest hand sanitiser her defence solicitor replied, “she’s not in good shape, she’s really dirty.”
Rather than being the subjects of proceedings, defendants in the dock were largely excluded from taking part in their own histories – reduced to the role of distant observers. For many individuals in the remand court, particularly homeless defendants, being denied participation and being spoken about, but not spoken to, increases feelings of powerlessness. This mirrors the lack of control and rejection that homeless defendants routinely face in their lives. Ultimately, repeat exclusion and marginalisation reinforces a message that homeless individuals are the undeserving who do not need to be included or listened to.
This blog was written by Dr Jill Harbord, University of Sussex. Sketch by Josephine Hawkins.
