On Thursday 4th June Mrs Terry came to our school about the Magistrates court and the Crown court. She explained about her work, the laws and the different sentences she gives. Mrs Terry talked about small crimes and punishments against bigger crimes and punishments that had to be sent to the Crown court.
The Crown court had a judge and jury as the Magistrates court had a chairman and two people at the side of the chairman which are also magistrates and stand as the jury because there are no jury in the Magistrates court. The defendant is the person who has been accused of the crime and the victim is the person who has been affected by the crime and they have accused the defendant. The witnesses are the people who have seen the crime and they tell the magistrates.
To show evidence they show CCTV footage and print off information from websites on computers to get proof of a crime like cyber bullying. Witnesses say what they saw during the crime to make it beyond reasonable doubt.
The sentences the magistrates can give are a caution, community service, curfew, a fine, a custodial sentence or a suspended custodial sentence. A caution means that you get a warning. Community service means you have to work but you don’t get paid. A curfew means you can’t go out between two times. A fine is where you have to pay a certain amount of money. A custodial sentence means you have to go to prison for a certain amount of time (6 months maximum for a Magistrates court), a suspended custodial sentence means if you don’t commit a crime for a certain amount of time you don’t go to prison but if you do , you go straight to prison.
We all enjoyed the talk and we learnt a lot about the punishments you can get.
Max, Jack and Lawrence