Barrister describes fight in courtroom and warns that security pressures are “getting worse”
A barrister has spoken out about court security after a high-tension incident in a coroner’s court last week. Approximately 15 people were involved in a fight where court furniture was thrown and terrified courtroom users scrambled for cover.
Andrew Cousins of 7 Harrington Street in Liverpool said the event “brought home to me, in very sharp reality, the pressure and strain on our court security.” He recalled standing inside the courtroom and trying to avoid being caught up in the melee, or hit by items hurled across the room.
He emphasised that neither he nor the judge nor other court personnel were the target of the altercation, which he said was between two sides of a family who were throwing “anything not nailed down.” He noted that, despite the severity of the incident, there were no injuries.
Cousins praised the court staff and police present, stating: “All of the court staff and the police were absolutely fantastic in restoring order as quickly as they could, and they worked extremely hard in a very difficult situation.”
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One contributing factor to the incident, he said, was the venue. The hearing was held in a council building rather than in a standard courthouse, meaning it lacked the usual level of court security. “Court security may have had greater chance of picking something up,” he suggested.
This was his first experience of physical violence in court, though he said that while acting for public authorities in inquests he had encountered many who were unpleasant, he had not faced outright violence until now.
He asked a key question: “The security in courts is vital to ensure that those inside are kept safe. How are any of us working to represent our clients, or judges having to make challenging and sometimes life altering decisions, ever going to be able to conduct their roles effectively, if they are concerned about violence breaking out in the courtroom and as a result, their own personal safety?”
Cousins returned to court in person yesterday for the first time since the incident and said he still felt anxiety, noting that the event “was still going round in my mind.”
He referenced comments made earlier this year by the Lady Chief Justice, Baroness Carr, who said concerns about judicial security were at an all-time high. Cousins said: “This situation has not improved, it is not going away, and if anything is getting worse. We need a strong response from the security taskforce that has been established, to provide us with safe courts, at all levels, across the country.”
Baroness Carr’s annual report, published yesterday, records the creation earlier this year of a judicial security taskforce led by Mrs Justice Yip. The report states the taskforce aims to increase judicial office-holders’ understanding of how they can protect themselves and has launched new digital security training for the judiciary. It will also collaborate with police and other criminal justice agencies to ensure the best possible systems and procedures are in place to protect the judiciary.
Mr Justice Spencer chairs the security committee on the Judges’ Council, which is responsible for coordinating judicial security policy and offering support and advice to judicial office-holders facing specific threats.
Baroness Carr added that the Ministry of Justice had committed capital funding to ensure that HM Courts & Tribunals Service can upgrade courts and tribunals estates to improve safety.
The report also cites the Senior Presiding Judge, Lord Justice Green, who said: “We see far too many instances of judges experiencing threats and harassment, both physically and online.”
The report further recalls a serious physical attack on Patrick Peruško in Milton Keynes at the end of last year. The assailant was later convicted, and Baroness Carr said the incident “made everybody really sit up and make sure that we were doing everything with HMCTS to ensure that their responsibility to preserve the safety of judges in courts and tribunals was being met.”
Among the upgrades to court security are changes to court layout for example moving a witness box so that the witness no longer blocks a judge’s exit, regular tests of panic alarms, implementation of a new “potentially violent person” protocol and improved engagement with local police.