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All Party Parliamentary Group Meeting 21st October 2013

by CanSS, posted 21 10 2013

Yvonne Davies, Yvonne Davies, former elected Chairman of the Manchester & Salford Bench commencing 1st January 2013, psychotherapist and mental health counsellor
- I Just Wanted to Make a Difference

Charles Walker, Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group (Cannabis and Children) welcomed everyone to the meeting and thanked Yvonne for coming.

Yvonne introduced herself and said that she had been a magistrate in Manchester.

She described how in 1996, a very close family member (her brother) started taking cannabis. After a while his behaviour changed and he became depressed and anxious. He eventually threw himself in the canal and drowned. He was missing for 10 days before being pulled from the canal.

In 2000, Yvonne saw an advertisement asking for interested people to become magistrates and she originally sent for the application forms for her husband. When they arrived, he decided that it was not for him, but thought that Yvonne should apply, which she subsequently did. When she was first sworn in, she was told that she was not there to be a social worker, but was there to dispense the law. She and her fellow magistrates listened to the evidence given and then made a judgement and dispensed the law. Later, “engagement” came in. This meant that when defendants were brought before her, she listened to both sides of the story, engaged with the defendant and then sentenced them. This would involve listening to what was happening in their lives and trying to assist them in staying out of trouble in the future, directing then to whichever service was necessary to help them.

One particular day Yvonne had a client who admitted cultivating cannabis. She engaged with him by telling him that her brother used to take cannabis and that he had ended up throwing himself in the canal. She told him that it was no good for him and that she did not want to hear of him being dragged from the canal in the future. He had no problem with her saying that to him and understood what she meant.

The court journalist submitted a report to his paper and Yvonne then had a call from the Evening News reporter who wanted to talk about the sentence and do a story.

Magistrates are not usually allowed to speak to the press but the court had told her that she could speak to him. She explained the reporter why she had spoken to the defendant to try to make him see the dangers of using and supplying drugs.

She spoke about the work that she did as a magistrate within the community such as going in to schools to give drug education talks, sitting on youth panels, advice panels, open days where the public get the chance to do mock sittings and sentence defendants after being given various pieces of information. She also worked on the Women Matter Programme.

She said, magistrates are not just there to punish, but also to support and direct defendants to where they can find help to become good members of their communities.

Magistrates go along with what they are told to do by the government in how they are allowed to sentence.

After the piece had been written and sent to press Peter Reynolds of CLEAR put in an official complaint to the court about Yvonne’s conduct which was ignored. The Justices Clerk in Manchester and Salford then made a complaint against Yvonne and she was asked to attend a panel made up of

three other magistrates. They decided that she had broken the rules and requested she be removed from office. The Lord Chief Justice and the Lord Chancellor disagreed and instead decided to give her an official reprimand. She decided to take it on the chin and just wanted to get back to work. Moral at the court was at a low anyway due to less work coming through, firstly through the increased use of police cautions and fines, and secondly due to the appointment of District Judges. Magistrates were feeling that they were not valued, despite the experience they bring in from all walks of life from the communities they live in. She wanted to get back and start rebuilding their sense of value. Magistrates are not paid and they work for their communities because they want to make it better.

She was then invited by the Justices Clerk to a “back to duty” meeting. He wanted it to be held at the Magistrates court but the Judge ordered it to be at the Crown Court. The meeting was held in the Judge’s Chambers. The Justices Clerk asked Yvonne what she thought her colleagues would be thinking of her. She replied that she didn’t know. He then said that it had been decided that she was not up to scratch which was why she had received the official reprimand. Yvonne replied that she did not think that her colleagues would be thinking badly of her and that she had been voted in as Chair of the Bench. The Justices Clerk then said that he felt that her colleagues would not be happy to work with her and that there was material on the internet about her. She replied that she did not think that her colleagues would be bothered by what was written about her on the website. The Justices Clerk then asked “what would defendants think if they saw that she was on the bench?” She replied that if they objected they had the right not to be judged by her. He then said that he felt that any drug offences would not get a fair trial by her because of her views on drugs. As there are always three magistrates anyway, this would not be a problem, but that drugs are illegal anyway. She pointed out that the defendant that she spoke to was cultivating drugs with intent to supply and was convicted as such. She reminded him that as drugs are illegal and she was only ever doing her job. The Justices Clerk then asked her to step down from being Bench Chairman.

Yvonne explained that there is an unwritten rule that no-one stands against the Bench Chairman for 3 years. She told the Justices Clerk that if in September, someone else did stand against her; she would stand down with immediate effect. He said that was not good enough and that he wanted her to stand down immediately. She replied no to which he replied “Go home and think about it.”

She went home and thought about it. Part of her job was to go around the country representing magistrates and she wanted to stay on the bench.

After discussion with her family she then thought about the point in staying on. Magistrates do not get paid. The amount of time she spent was costing her to run her own business. She was spending her own money and losing employment. She only wanted to make a difference to defendants and the magistrates who had voted her into the job of Bench Chairman. She feels very strongly that magistrates have a very important job but their powers are now constantly being eroded.

More and more now, police are giving cautions and fines and the magistrates work has started to reduce and magistrates are leaving the service in droves as moral is so low. They feel that they are not valued despite all the work they do in their communities. District Judges are now being brought in. They are trained and paid a lot of money. They are allowed to sit alone and also then decide alone whether or not someone is guilty. They then also punish on their own. This seems odd as even Crown Court judges have a jury or 12 men or women. Why are District Judges allowed to work alone? They are also not members of the community in which they are working. Magistrates are called from all walks of life from within the communities they work in. There are now 6 district

Judges. In the light of all this, she made the decision to resign from her post. She could apply to another bench as she will always be a sworn magistrate, but she feels that with her work now, she is able to reach more people and make a difference.

As a psychotherapist, Yvonne sees the destruction that drugs do. Although they are illegal, there seems to be a tolerance towards their use now. Through her job as a magistrate she has seen the social problems that drugs cause, not only to drug users and their families, but also to their neighbours and communities. Their neighbours are disturbed at all times of the day and night by people knocking on the door either buying or selling drugs. They are disturbed by anti-social behaviour over drugs, with disputes over money. Their family lives are disturbed. Drug use also affects social housing stocks. There is a knock on effect for each and every one of us. Drug users very often steal to fund their habit. Handbags are stolen, people are mugged. Drugs cause a massive social problem.

Recently in the papers in Manchester, there was a raid at a house where a young man had died. The local paper reported that it had been a bad batch. They suggested that drug workers should be brought in to test the drugs so that it wouldn’t happen again. Where were the police? Drugs are ILLEGAL. They should not be tested to see if they are a bad batch. They should not be there. In Manchester now they will not prosecute unless there are more than six plants. People are not just growing them because they are nice plants; neither are they usually growing just for personal use. The majority of them are selling it. It has to be stopped. Everything is being left wide open for the gangs. Yvonne reiterated that she just wanted to make a difference to other families so that they would not have to go through the devastation that her family went through with the death of her brother. Through her business she has 21 counsellors who give their time and experience free of charge to help those with drug and other issues. This is expanding all the time, with her aim to carry on reaching out and making a difference to even more people.