Judge slams court's lack of prisoner escort

Judge Peter Ross spoke out as he sentenced a man who admitted escaping from custody at the Newbury courthouse rather than wait around to be taken to jail.
Speaking at Reading Crown Court, he said there was always a risk at any magistrates’ court that an immediate custodial sentence could be imposed, and that it was right that a sentencing bench had that option.
On June 19, 32-year-old Maurice Black, of no fixed address, absconded from West Berkshire Magistrates’ Court. after he was sentenced to 20 weeks’ imprisonment for handling stolen goods.
Since the Newbury courthouse has been downgraded to ‘satellite’ status, a permanent prisoner escort service is no longer present there.
Presiding magistrate Nicola Buchanan-Dunlop there had to ask Black to wait within the court precincts until one arrived.
Instead, he absconded.
Black, who has numerous previous convictions, was arrested within days and on Monday, July 7, Judge Ross added just 14 days to his sentence for escaping from lawful custody.
The judge said it was asking too much to expect a defendant who has just been released from prison, and who was being sent straight back to prison, not to succumb to the temptation to make off.
The situation was “wholly unacceptable,” he added.
Judge Ross joins critics of the current system such as Newbury MP Richard Benyon and some magistrates themselves.
Mr Benyon has called for the reinstatement of a permanent prisoner escort service at Newbury and branded the current situation “utterly ridiculous.”
And magistrate Douglas Porter has said problems caused by the lack of a prisoner escort service were happening “embarrasingly often.”