A Jigsaw Day

I  had a bit of a jigsaw day today. All the rain and dampness is playing up my arthritis, so I decided to rest up. I finished this lovely jigsaw this morning, it was enjoyable to do and quite interesting. I did half of another one this afternoon. I also walked into town and joined G for a very interesting talk at the Library called A View From the Bench about the speaker’s life as a magistrate. I think he said there are 13,000 magistrates (who are unpaid, but get expenses), but that when he started there were around 30,000. 97% of all people charged with an offence appear in front of a local magistrate. He talked us through the different types of courts they can be call for (Family Court for example). We played a quick game of name the Lord Chancellors over recent years - none of us could name the current one even though we were shown their photo! There is frustration at the moment with the recent announcement that offenders who might have received a custodial sentence will now be punished in the community - but nothing was said about the availability of community sentence options or the support for advising magistrates on this and managing offenders in the community by the Probation Service. The prisons are almost full. Well done to those 13,000 magistrates who volunteer for this challenging unpaid role to support their community. 

PS - the current Lord Chancellor and Secretary of State for Justice is Alex Chalk KC MP. 

Not looking forward to the horrible weather forecast for tomorrow with yellow warnings for both wind and rain. I feel so sorry for those in Scotland facing a rare Red weather warning, I hope everyone stays safe.