Magistrates Court Observation

This essay details the observations made during a court visit. The court visited was the Thames Magistrates’ Court, which is located in Bow, London. The visit was made on the 27th of March 2019. The case observed was regarding an application for seizure of property under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The proceedings included the opening statement made on behalf of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, and the witness statement, which included the circumstances of the case, the details of the investigation, and the findings of the investigations concluding with an application for declaring property as recoverable property. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis was the applicant and a Mr Humayun Shoukat was the respondent in the case. Although the case was not a criminal case, and the applicant noted that these were civil proceedings, as the matter concerned the declaration of recoverable property under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002, the case was heard in the Magistrate’s court. The case was regarding the seizure of cash found on Mr Shoukat in September 2017, wherein it was claimed on behalf of the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis that the cash found was recoverable property or property that was intended for an unlawful use.

Representation of parties was done by

Several professionals took part in the proceedings. The witness statement was prepared by DS Kelly Morrison who is attached to the Metropolitan Police Service Criminal Finance Team, North Hub, as the accredited financial investigator. DS Kelly had prepared the witness statement pursuant to the cash forfeiture investigation conducted by her. The witness statement was very detailed and reflected on the step by step process involved in the financial investigations such as this one. The Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis was the prosecuting authority in the case. The submissions indicate that he has based his decision to prosecute Mr Shoukat on the investigations conducted by DS Kelly Morrison. This means that the accredited financial investigator must play an important role in such proceedings involving cash seizure under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. This coincides with literature on this point that shows that in financial crimes, financial investigators play an important role (Brown & Gillespie, 2015). Research also shows that integrated financial investigations have become an important part of criminal justice system in the UK (Atkinson, 2010).

The principal legal issue raised in the proceedings was whether the cash found on the person of Mr Shoukat was a recoverable property within the meaning of Section 294 of the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002. The case on behalf of the state was that Mr Shoukat was claimed to have been pacing on the road and shouting at cars and later found sitting in the car by the police. There was a strong smell of cannabis on Mr Shoukat and he was accordingly searched under the Misuse of Drugs Act (Section 23). The search yielded some cannabis, three iphones (one of which was blocked as stolen) and cash amount of £ 6,290, which Mr Shoukat claimed was given him by a friend for advance on a flat. He could not or refused to provide further details on the flat or his friend. Based on this, and the investigation conducted by DS Kelly, it has been claimed that the cash is recoverable property. On the other hand, the respondent contested the cash being recoverable property as it was not obtained through any illegal means.

The visit to the Thames Magistrates’ Court has provided important insights into the nature of the Magistrates’ courts in England and Wales. It was noticed during the court visit that the magistrate was sitting to decide the case on his own and without the help of a jury. Therefore, the first insight is that Magistrate courts do not involve jury, which means that the magistrate has the entire burden of deciding the case (Martin & Storey, 2015). In this case, the magistrate had to decide on the issue of whether the cash was recoverable property or not, on the basis of the evidence submitted by the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis based on the investigation conducted by the financial investigator.

The court visit also led to an insight on the amount of workload that the Magistrate courts are responsible for. As Magistrate courts are responsible for deciding the smallest of criminal matters, the burden of workload is significantly vast (Martin & Storey, 2015). Despite this workload, Magistrate courts have proved to be effective in imparting justice as statistics reveal that the rate of appeals from these courts is not high and even with the cases that are appealed from Magistrate Courts, the success rate is only about 50 percent (Martin & Storey, 2015). On an average, about 2 million cases are decided in Magistrate Courts every year, of which only about 6000 defendants appeal their conviction to the Crown Court each year (Martin & Storey, 2015, p. 253). This would mean that only about 3000 appeals are successful out of 2 million cases decided by the courts.

Magistrate courts are often referred to as the ‘judicial beasts of burden’ because of the larger burden of judicial work that is taken on by the Magistrate courts. This is because the smallest of the conflicts and smallest offences are decided in the Magistrate courts without the jury. This would mean that magistrates perform a significant portion of judicial work in the criminal side of administration of justice and that the majority of the criminal cases are actually first initiated in the Magistrate courts. Cases that come to the Magistrate courts include summary offences, such as, motoring offences, minor assaults, and minor offences. Magistrates also hear and decide what are called as ‘either-way offences’, such as, theft, which are those offences that can be heard either by the Magistrate courts or Crown Court (Martin & Storey, 2015). Magistrate courts also decide on the question of bail in the category of offences known as indictable-only offences, such as murder and manslaughter. It may be noted that approximately 97 percent of all criminal cases are first initiated in the Magistrate courts (Martin & Storey, 2015).

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The English legal system, particularly the criminal justice system is an amalgamation of several key institutions and participants, who form part of the process of the law (Ribadu, 2004). As this case showed, the key participants were the Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, the accredited financial investigator, and police officers (officer reporting the incident) who had maintained the evidence against the respondent. The arrest notes maintained by the officers, and the evidence books, are all part of the important documentation that is used in the cases that come up before the court. Each individual in this process forms an important link and without that link the process of law is vitiated. The appendices that were attached to the witness statement prepared by DS Kelly are reflective of the entire process that starts with the questioning and interviewing of the individual to the interviews conducted with third parties for gathering evidence for the case. Each of these appendices is reflective of the step by step procedure that forms an important chain of events that leads to the making of the application. In the case observed, the applicant was making an application for the seizure of the cash as recoverable property under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

Bibliography

• Atkinson, P., 2010. Effective Investigation of Assets, Practical Application of Mutual Legal Assistance and Asset Recovery. Bucharest, OECD Anti-Corruption Network for Eastern Europe and Central Asia, pp. 87-105.
• Brown, R. & Gillespie, S., 2015. Overseas financial investigation of organised crime: Examining the barriers to effective implementation. Journal of Money Laundering Control, 18(3), pp. 371-381.
• Martin, J. & Storey, T., 2015. Unlocking Criminal Law. 5 ed. Oxon: Routledge.
• Ribadu, N., 2004. Obstacles to effective prosecution of corrupt practices and financial crime cases in Nigeria, Kaduna: House of Representative Committee on anti-corruption, national ethic and values.