New Magistrates Sought for Northumbria

The Ministry of Justice is inviting applications for new Magistrates in Northumbria.

The area has two benches - North and South Northumbria.

North Northumbria has courthouses at Newcastle-upon-Tyne, North Shields (North Tyneside), Bedlington (Mid and South East Northumberland) and Berwick-upon-Tweed. The majority of work takes place at Newcastle and there are daily remand courts at Newcastle, North Shields and Bedlington.

South Northumbria has courthouses at South Shields (South Tyneside), Gateshead and Sunderland. The majority of work takes place at South Shields, which has a daily remand court, with limited traffic work at Gateshead and limited non-custodial trials at Sunderland.

Although Magistrates are assigned to one of the benches, an increasing number work across the entire Northumbria area. Applications are sought from people of good character and sound judgement between the ages of 18 and 70. The minimum time commitment is 13 days per year, but many sit far more often than that.

The benches should reflect the communities they serve, so applications are particularly welcome from younger adults, the unemployed and those from ethnic minority backgrounds. No prior legal knowledge or qualification is required, as Magistrates always sit with a professionally qualified Legal Advisor.

Sean Harvey, 44, a local primary school teacher, has been a Magistrate for 15 years. He was originally appointed to the former North Tyneside bench, now North Northumbria bench. He was just a mere bairn, as they say around those parts, when he began his Magisterial journey in his late twenties.

Sean said: "You have to have a cross-section of Magistrates who represent your society. Being a gay man, I come to the Magistracy with a different flavour, and I came from a very poor family from North Shields. I can really understand what it's like for families to have poverty in their lives.

"I would encourage younger people to apply to join the Magistracy, we need a lot more younger people from a cross-section of society. I would advise people from all industries to think about it."

Data shows that the diversity of the Northumbria benches has increased over the last 5 years, with 17 percent of Magistrates below the age of 50 and 4 percent identifying as being from an ethnic minority background.

In relation to the selection and appointment process, Sean said: "It is a very thorough and rigorous process, probably harder than any interview I've had in my career, but it should be a robust process because you are given great responsibility which you have to use with great caution.

"I was surprised to get through, the interview is quite daunting. You can do many things to people - you can put them in prison and put restrictions on their liberty, so it should be a grueling process."

Sean finds that his professional skills as a teacher compliment his work on the bench and vice versa.

He said: "The things I do as a Magistrate enhance my day job as a teacher. The skills I use as a teacher I also bring into the  Magistracy like teamwork and thinking skills.

"I enjoy the great responsibility you have. How you use that responsibility is really important and should be used with great care and attention.

"We have to think about the people who appear in court, I see many that are from very poor backgrounds who had a very poor education. Many can't read and write when they leave school. I think it's important you have an understanding of the difficulties some of these people face in their communities.

"One of the biggest things at the moment is mental health. As a Magistrate, we need to be really careful of how we deal with people with mental health issues.

"Predominantly, many of the people entering our Criminal Justice System now can't read or write, but many of them suffer from mental health problems and our justice system is starting to fill up with people who need careful managing.

"Should these people really be in the Criminal Justice System, do we need to do something in society to encourage mental health services to be improved, because we're seeing a lot of people coming through our court systems that maybe shouldn't be there, because of the nature of their illness."

Anyone interested in applying for the role is invited to read our article "Becoming a Magistrate".

They are also strongly encouraged to visit one of the Northumbria Magistrates' Courts.

There is daily business listed at the courts in Newcastle, North Shields, Bedlington and South Shields, which begin sitting at 10 am weekday mornings and 2 pm weekday afternoons. The court at Newcastle also sits at 9.30 am on Saturday mornings.