(Nick Ansell/PA)
(Picture: PA Archive)Justice chiefs have apologised after more than 1,000 London court cases were conducted in secret, in a controversial process that prosecutors believe they are forced to use.
Parents accused of having truanting children, train fare dodgers, disabled parking badge abusers and litterbugs were among those involved in the secret court sessions at Barkingside magistrates’ court this summer.
They were prosecuted through the single justice procedure, a court process which allows magistrates to sit away from open court and make convictions based on written evidence alone.
The public and reporters are barred from attending the court sessions, but when MPs approved the process — used for hundreds of thousands of prosecutions each year — they insisted that details of cases are always shared with the media.
Yet an Evening Standard investigation into SJP court sittings between July and September identified four private sessions at Barkingside, where almost £120,000 in fines were handed out to more than 1,000 defendants, had been kept a secret.
“We apologise that lists were not sent out on a small number of occasions as a result of human error,” said an HM Courts and Tribunals Service spokesperson. “The team responsible for sending these has been reminded of their importance.”
It follows a series of incidents in 2020 and 2021 when Westminster magistrates court handled the prosecutions of more than 100 Covid rule-breakers in conditions of total secrecy, forgetting to tell the public and the media or publicise what had taken place.
MPs on the Justice Select Committee recently raised fresh concerns about a “lack of transparency” in the SJP which has been running since 2015, urging the government to “review the procedure and ensure that it is as transparent as proceedings in open court”.
The Ministry of Justice promised Parliament that “the principle of open justice continues to apply” in the SJP system, including the routine provision of court lists to the media. Yet magistrates courts in north London have failed to respond to repeated media requests to send out lists of cases due to be dealt with.
Train companies and London councils who prosecuted cases through secret courts at Barkingside this summer were contacted to alert them to the problem and raise concerns about a lack of transparency in the system.
Some replied to say they believe they are forced to use the closed-court system, in stark contrast to HMCTS’s insistence that “all prosecutors have the legal right to choose whether they use the single justice procedure”.
“Barkingside magistrates’ court requires us to prosecute certain matters via the SJP process,” said Barking and Dagenham council. Govia Thameslink told the Standard: “We don’t choose to prosecute people in this way”, adding: “The question is a matter for the courts.”
Southeastern Trains declined to comment, while Greater Anglia, East Midlands Railway, Redbridge Council and Havering Council did not respond to questions.
The Rail Delivery Group – which represents the interests of train operators – said firms acting as prosecutors do not have a choice on what type of court process is used.
“The rail industry is not responsible for court listings as these are a matter for individual courts”, a spokesperson said.
The Evening Standard made attempts to obtain documents from some Barkingside cases, but the request sat unread in the court’s inbox for three-and-a-half weeks and is unanswered.
