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141 J.P.N. 1 (1977)

handle is hein.journals/cljw141 and id is 1 raw text is: JUSTICE OF THE PEACE,JANUARY 1, 1977 JUSTICE OF THE PEACE Established 1837 Registered at the General Post Office as a Newspaper Price 62p. (Including Reports). 35p. (without Reports) LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 1, 1977. VOL. 141 No. 1 Pages 1 - 16 Offices London Office . Bookbinding Department LITTLE LONDON, 7 Bell Yard, 28 St. Michael's Street, CHICHESTER, SUSSEX, Temple Bar, W.C.2 Oxford Chichester 87841/2 01-242 1705 Oxford 43413 notes of the week Compensation for Loss The case of Cadamarteri (1976) The Times, December 1, will no doubt be quoted in courts up and down the country for some time by defence soli- citors as authority for the proposition that compensation should not be award- ed against an offender where the stolen property is returned in full, even though it is in dismantled form. In fact, that is not quite the point decided. In that case the defendant appealed successfully to the Court of Appeal against a £250 compensation order made at Bradford Crown Court follow- ing his conviction for handling a stolen mini car. Evidence had been given that at the date of the theft the car had a value of £250, and it was found part- ially dismantled at the appellant's garage. The pieces had been retained as exhi- bits for the trial. Quashing the order of compensation, Bridge, L.J., said that no damage had been suffered within the meaning of s.35 of the Powers of Crim- inal Courts Act 1973, because the pieces had been recovered and this did not support a compensation order in the amount of the value of the car as assess- ed at the date of the loss. Similarly, he said, there was no basis on the evidence of the difference in value of the car when stolen and its value in its dis- mantled condition with the benefit of the work done to it by the appell- ant when it had been recovered. The compensation order had been made without any proper basis for it. Section 35 allows the court to make a compensation order for any personal injury, loss or damage resulting from the offence. Clearly, where the whole of the property is recovered in dismantled form there can be no basis under the present law for making an order of com- pensation for its full value. Perhaps there should be: it seems hard that the owner should be required to take back a car which has been so forcibly abused and it would not seem for a moment un- just for the court to have power to make an order against the offender that he compensate his victim in full and be allowed to keep the dismantled pieces. Nevertheless, that is not the law. What Cadamarteri does not say is that, where a thief or handler dismantles the stolen property and it is recovered in dismantled form that there can be no basis for a compensation order. Presum- ably, if the prosecution or the owner had submitted a bill for the cost of re- assembling the car to its pristine con- dition that sum could have been made the subject of a compensation order as a loss resulting from the offence. Where the court went wrong was in making a financial order which ignored the reali- ties of the situation. Duty Solicitor Schemes Mr. Michael King, lecturer in law at Warwick University, who under the aus- pices of the Cobden Trust, the research offshoot of the National Council for Civil Liberties, has been examining the effects of duty solicitor schemes, is doubtful about the long term effects of such schemes on unrepresented defend- ants in magistrates' courts. The research was carried out -at Hen- don magistrates' court, one of the first courts to introduce a duty solicitor scheme. Another magistrates' court in north London, Harrow, which had not a duty solicitor scheme, was used as a comparison to establish the effect of the Hendon scheme. The research found that, while there was little difference in the proportion of pleadings of not guilty and legal aid applications between the two courts, significantly more de- fendants obtained bail on first appear- ance in the Hendon court, where the duty solicitor scheme was operating. Comparing those defendants at Hen- don who were represented by the scheme with those at Hendon who were not, Mr. King found that a higher proportion of the scheme-assisted defendants pleaded not guilty, obtained bail and were successful in their legal aid applications. The report finds that the introduction of the scheme at Hendon had reduced the tendency for the police to influence defendants' pleas on first hearing and had eliminated a degree of confusion for defendants who were un- certain about how to plead. On the other hand, by encouraging adjourn- ments, the scheme had counter-balanced the amount of the court's time which the scheme might have saved. So far, so good; the research does little more than confirm the findings of other research projects concerned with the effect of legal representation. Mr. (1) The Effects of a Duty Solicitor Scheme by Michael King. Cobden Trust, 186 King's Cross Road, London WCIX 9DE. Price 70p.

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