Once again, harking back to being a Court Duty Officer with the Probation Service in Stevenage Magistrates Court. This occurred when I first arrived and it was quite eventful!
I arrived in Stevenage Probation straight from our honeymoon; everyone thought it was so sweet having a newlywed in the office. I was assigned to be in the Magistrates Court three days each week with the other days being covered by staff in the Hitchin office.
For the first few days I was shown the ropes, introduced to the key people and shown around. I met a couple of the Clerks (who run the Court and you need the right credibility with them), the ushers, defence solicitors, the custody staff and so on. I liked it.
The following Monday was my first day in the Court House on my own. There were three Courts sitting, although probably only two of them would need me. As was my usual practice, I would collect the papers from the office, stroll over to the Court and sort through the papers, getting them in the right order for the day ahead. I would also read the Pre-Sentence Reports written by colleagues so I knew what was probably going to happen.
However, as soon as I got there, I was swamped by a handful of solicitors, each wanting the Reports on their clients who were being sentenced that day.
As I opened the folder in front of everyone, there were a couple of girly magazines, suitably stapled to open at the most graphic, ‘full frontal’ double spread pages! Talk about being set up by my loveable colleagues!
Naturally this caused quite a stir; the new Probation Officer with girly magazines amongst his papers. Word soon got around. Ushers going in and out of the Court would give me a wink. Later on, even the Clerk asked in open Court if my papers were correct for the afternoon sitting. I was so embarrassed!
When I went back to the office, I didn’t know how to act. Should I pretend nothing happened, or perhaps I should have a rant and demand to know who set me up? I had my suspicions and decided to keep quiet. A few people gave me a little smile, a Probation Officer tried to ask me what sentence her client got but just couldn’t keep a straight face.
After a day or so, it was obvious everyone in the office knew what had happened, even the Senior Probation Officer kept asking me how my first day in Court had been.
I decided to act some revenge as I had found out the main culprit. She had her own office (common in those days, before open plan efficiencies) and so I decorated it by putting up toilet paper like Christmas decorations. Yard after yard, all draped around from the lights, the windows blinds, the coat stand, everywhere! I don’t think the cleaner was very impressed with me.
And so began a year or two in Stevenage Magistrates Court. Sure, it got forgotten quickly enough as I got accepted into the Court family. I sometimes used to have my morning tea downstairs in the “Group 4 Cafe” as the custody suite was known. Other times if I needed to swear an oath as I applied for a warrant, this would be done over a cup of tea with the Magistrates in their retiring room.
Looking back I thoroughly enjoyed my time there, very conscious of being the “shop window” for the Probation Service and absolutely critical in starting properly the journey a defendant would take through the Court/Prison/Probation system.
A good time there for sure, but not without an embarrassed, red faced Court Duty Officer!