One
accused man recounts his experience of the justice system for Open
Justice week.
John
is 28 years old and lives in Glasgow. He has a normal job, takes in
the football and the company of friends at the weekend and leads a
life fairly typical of a male in his twenties dwelling in a British
metropolitan environment, the kind of life that would be deemed by
most to be unremarkable.
Early
in the hours of a Saturday morning at the end of January, though,
things changed irreversibly for John. After a night out with his then
partner, John was visited in his home by two officers of Strathclyde
Police. He was detained, charged with a domestic breach of the peace
and common assault, and then passed through various entities of the
Scottish justice system – police cars, interview rooms, holding
cells, Reliance vans and a court rooms - before being granted bail
and returned to his liberty, albeit conditionally, at Glasgow Sheriff
Court the following Monday afternoon.
I’m
calling him John because the court proceedings which begun a few
weeks ago are still ongoing – he is to appear at a further hearing
at the same court later this year, when he will learn whether he is
to stand trial on the charges, which he robustly denies – and
therefore his real name cannot be associated with a frank recounting
of his experience such as this.
Despite
the case, John is relaxed enough when we meet; the lingering
emotional marks of his debut (he hopes his only) encounter of the
corridors of justice, with their overwhelming private vocabulary and
de trop procedure, surface only occasionally and fleetingly. The
marks are definitely there though, detectable throughout our
discussion in little moments of frustration and anger, worry and
trepidation.
From
our quiet corner table, he begins: “The thing that really galls me
is what the charges were. I asked how I had breached the peace. They
said, basically, because I had shouted at her. So, to my mind,
I had been arrested and charged with shouting at someone in my own
house – the same person who had shouted back at me.” It’s worth
mentioning here that John was given the opportunity by police to make
a counter-allegation, an opportunity he declined.
The
relationship was by John’s own admission “tempestuous”, though
nothing more than that and the argument which ignited that night had
taken him by surprise. Yes, words were exchanged; there were even
moments during the altercation, he tells me, where they held each
other’s arms. But assault? Criminal charges? The concepts are as
alien to him as the world of legalese and cell graffiti which he now
finds himself inescapably embroiled in.
And
this is what makes his case so interesting: John’s charges are far
from the most serious that a judge in the UK will consider – though
this is not to understate domestic violence’s pernicious effects or
its particular social significance. He is, if there exists such a
thing, an ordinary person - John tells me he had no idea how to
instruct a solicitor prior to this, or that if he had simply said
nothing during his interview he wouldn’t be in the position he is
in currently. An ordinary person who has been placed in a system
which is intended to be universal and designed to receive and deal
with him fairly and in the public interest.
The
first link in the chain for almost every person entering into our
legal system, whether via an arrest or attendance at a station, is
our police. In this regard, John was no different. The officers
who were in his home and at the station were professional and
pleasant enough, reassuring even, but more systemic problems with the
way in which accused individuals are handled by the police became
apparent.
“I
had been completely calm at all points,” he explains. “It was
obvious they weren’t dealing with someone who had taken part in a
violent assault. The officer said we have to detain you and I didn’t
realise I would then be handcuffed.”
Pretty
standard stuff you might think, but when you consider John’s next
point, it raises a number of questions. “They were quite happy for
me and one other guy to be sitting in that room - in all honesty I
finished a bottle of beer while I was sitting talking to the guy. The
guy was sitting to my left on the couch, so if I wanted to I could
have smashed it over his head. Now, I’m never going to do that, but
I could have.”
“I
can understand a better safe than sorry approach on their behalf,
because they don’t know me,” he says, “but there’s no
continuity with it and it doesn’t make any sense.” So why do
officers place people in handcuffs after allowing them such freedom
of movement? “It’s to dehumanise you, it’s to assert authority
over you in whatever ways they can,” he replies.
It’s
a process that continues upon arrival at the station. “Whenever you
get in there they take your jacket off you,” John goes on. “You’re
only allowed one set of clothes, yet you’re given as many sheets as
you want, which would make a much better noose than my jacket. Even
if you have slip-on shoes with no laces they are taken off you. When
I was taken in to be interviewed, I wasn’t allowed to put a pair of
shoes on. So you’re sitting there with just socks on: It’s like,
for fuck’s sake, this is my life!”
John
smiles wryly at this point, but his displeasure at the method of
handling suspects is clear to see. A further source of ire - on top
of what he describes as a prevalence of “procedure for procedure’s
sake” - could be found in the underlying reasons for his detention.
As he elaborates: “ I was told by my lawyer there was a decision
made by the Lord Advocate whenever they changed this piece of
legislation in 2010, a political decision that the SNP made to
desperately try and increase the number of convictions for domestic
violence. That’s the reason I couldn’t be bailed without seeing a
sheriff.”
John
was told by an officer that if he had head-butted someone on
Sauchiehall Street that he’d have been released. At this stage,
too, his charge was still only a breach of the peace; the common
assault was later added by the Procurator Fiscal after receipt of the
police report, another decision which he says “doesn’t make any
sense”. He continues: “Incarceration for three days is insane for
that [breach of the peace], when you consider there’s people
punching random people outside pubs and committing much more
offensive crimes to society. It’s frustrating.”
His
sense of confusion was, it seemed, shared by his carers at the police
station, all most all of whom described his being there as
“bullshit”. John recalls the moment he was informed that he would
be held over the weekend. “Once the tape was off,” he says “the
CID officer apologised to me and said: ‘Look, I’m sorry. This
will go to the Fiscal and it will probably get kicked out. But, I’m
sorry, I have to do this.’ I just put my head in my hands and asked
if there was anything I could do to get out of there.”
The
answer was no.
John
eventually emerged from the stairs into a court room having not
washed for 72 hours and was granted bail by a sheriff on Monday
afternoon before his release. In that time, he had passed through the
sleepless monotony of the “Victorian” custody cells of two
Glasgow police stations - an environment in which quickly he learned
“not to ask difficult questions” - and Reliance officers had
derided and confiscated the books his parents, who attended his
custody hearing in tears, had brought for him to read.
He
had eaten nothing but gluey microwavable meals delivered at unusual
hours of the day and had negotiated the intimidating and “strange”
group cell at the Sheriff Court. The experience of seeing so many
young men accruing charge upon charge and conviction upon conviction
is one that you can see John is still trying to make sense of.
He
had stood a mute spectator in a court of law as his immediate liberty
was discussed in a matter of seconds by other men whom he had never
previously met. He had done all this yet it only represented the
beginning of things.
John
is to appear at the same court for a pre-trial hearing, or
intermediate diet, in the summer, where he will find out if his case
will proceed to trial and where he will continue to plead not guilty.
Between now and then he has much to contemplate. The “worst three
days” of his life in the preliminary mechanisms of justice have
left him troubled.
As
well as the immediate implications of the case and a criminal record,
he worries about the impact on his future career, the effects of all
this on his family and about unwittingly breaching his bail. Mostly,
though, the experience has brought home an uncomfortable reality
about the process of justice.
“I
don’t believe that the criminal justice system is set up for the
‘average’ person to have a fair access to it,” he tells me.
From his being charged to his engaging of a lawyer and standing in
front of a judge in the theatre of the court room, John has witnessed
what he calls “the archaic rigmarole” of the law, and more
awaits. When he thinks about it all now, the persisting question in
his mind is: “Who benefits?”
Copyright
remains with the author.
