Normal sittings have resumed, at least in my part of the world.
All of our courts are now open and the District Judges are taking a well earned break (kind of), having been holding the fort since the coronavirus lockdown began towards the end of March.
Last week, for the first time since March, I actually sat in the daily remand court, but it wasn't anything like I remembered it!
We had been emailed a list of procedures that were to be followed at each court building in light of the ongoing coronavirus situation.
To begin with there were a load of cones and one way arrows outside the court building. On entering the building there is a normally a requirement to sign in, but this has temporarily been dispensed with to avoid unnecessary contact with the signing in sheet.
Instead of congregating with colleagues in the main assembly room, we had to make a beeline for our individual retiring rooms. Walking through the building there are copious amounts of black and yellow tape to indicate safe routes and passing places on the stairs and corridors.
Tea, coffee and biscuits are now strictly off limits, unless you bring your own. Every water dispenser has a sign reminding people to wash their hands after using it. The normal paper court lists, which would normally be provided as a matter of course, are now only available on request. Furniture has been rearranged so that there are fewer sitting positions in each retiring room.
Normally I would help myself to an iPad from the charging cabinet, signing it out at the start of the day and returning it at the end. Temporary procedures are currently in place whereby a member of court staff, suitably donned with disposable gloves and disinfectant wipes, delivers iPads to each Justice and collects them at the end of the day.
Drinking water is no longer provided in the courtroom or retiring rooms, but the helpful usher managed to rustle up a paper cup so I wouldn't be swigging directly from my Lucozade bottle whilst sat on the bench. As you'd expect, there are bottles of hand sanitiser all over the place.
Lay benches are sitting with only two Justices at the moment, so the third chair has been removed. Marks are taped on the floor and bench where each Justice is allowed to sit and work. All extraneous items have been removed from the courtrooms, so they have an even more clinical feel than normal. Most of the seating has been taped off to ensure social distancing between the various parties working in the courtroom. The public and press seating, which is never that busy in all honesty, has been reduced to only a couple of spaces.
Front of shop the public waiting area, which regularly accommodates in excess of 30 people, has three quarters of its seats taped off. A member of office staff, wearing a high visibility waistcoat, has been allocated to direct people to where they need to sit, ensuring that there is at least a two metre gap between each of them.
In normal times cases would be listed for either the morning session (10 am start) or afternoon session (2 pm start), but each case is now being allocated a specific time slot to help stagger attendance and thereby reduce the concentration of people in the building.
Turning to the business of the day, several defendants failed to attend and it wasn't appropriate to proceed in their absence. The prosecutor, who isn't renowned for her pace at the best of times, was being hampered by laptop issues. She had also just received the day's cases and needed time to read and digest them. There were several cases where the usual horse trading between prosecution and defence ended in stalemate, so they couldn't be resolved either.
I was fortunate to be sitting with a colleague whose opinions and decisions are usually in tune with my own. Potentially we could have concluded a lot of cases, so it was disappointing that the day turned out so bitty. It's always nice to make some headway, particularly with the system facing a bit of a backlog at the moment.
There might be a bit more to do on Monday when I'm next in court, with the Government allowing pubs to reopen this weekend.
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