The excitement of sitting in the public gallery at Winchester Crown Court

Well, after our let down trip last Tuesday in our 4 hour break, where we took a trip into Winchester town in the car (as yes we are lazy), bustled through the busy lunch time traffic, went round in circles a couple of times and eventually found a car park where we resorted to dumping the car and trying to find the court on foot. We finally found it hidden behind some large buidings and were excited to find ourselves inside Winchester Crown Court looking at the screens for a case to sit in. It all seemed a bit scary for us but luckily our nice security guard came to our rescue and helped us find our way into a public gallery. Cut a long story short the case was only a Magistrate case (this means it isnt as important as there is no jury present) and after trying to find another gallery to go into we left the Court after being told by receptionist we wouldnt get into a case as they are fully booked with school trips up until Christmas (great!) We left the Court unhappy and decided to get a cake from the bakers to cheer ourselves up.

So, what I am getting to is that today we tried again, Faith and I decided to walk down to Court this time (must better choice excpet the hill on the way back is rather steep) and we entered court at around 11:45 where we entered Court 4 and found a case (with a jury present this time and a Judge who was also wearing a wig which must mean the case is kind of important) and a Police man who we later found out was a witness for the victim. The case was based around an attack from a Polish man who had apparently hit another boy with a baseball bat and threatened the boy and his group of friends by shouting at them which made one of the witnesses (the boys friend) run in fear to a nearby garden. This happened around 18 months ago as evidence has been gathered from the police and witness statements etc have been given which were read out in court along with the transcript from the defendants interview when he was arrested on the night of the attack in his car away from the scene and was taken to Alton Police Station for questioning. He was then charged of common assault and referred to Winchester Crown Court on trial which started yesterday 17th October. Today's case involved us hearing the witness account of the events (who is a friend of the boy and was with him and 3 other friends when it happened) who was verbally attacked by the defendant's Barrister who was trying to pick out little details to emphasise for the Jury who were listening intently. At one point the Judge sent out the Jury as asked by the defendants barrister who wanted to make a point of law, where it was concluded that an order would be put in place to allow no direct questions such as 'have you met since the incident and how were you both when you were together' which was asked by the defendants Barrister to emphasise to the Jury that the boys have met since the incident which makes the whole case seem irrelevant. However on Day 1 we found out that the Judge had also put an order to prevent questions such as 'does the person you believe to be the defendant have an accent?' as the defendant accused was in fact Polish which would be distingushed if he was to be identified by the witnesses. However the witnesses in their statement could not identify the defendant apart from his clothing which was mentioned in both the defendant and the witness statements. The case ended for lunch half way through hearing the transcript from the interview of the defendant where the Policeman had to swear an oath before the judges before giving any evidence as a witness. The case continues after lunch however my seminar is at 3pm therefore I could not return the sentencing is due tomorrow at Court. Therefore the decision is up to the Jury who need to decide weather the defendant is guilty going by the evidence they heard in Court. If there is any doubt in their mind he is not guilty they need to plead 'not guilty' when asked for a verdict by the Judge.