CJS working together for the public

A child or young person is tried in a youth court unless any of the following situations arise:

• He or she is charged with homicide (e.g. murder or manslaughter), when they must be sent to the Crown Court for trial.
• He or she is aged 14 or over and is charged with a "grave crime"(an offence for which an adult could be imprisoned for at least 14 years), indecent assault or dangerous driving. These cases may be sent to the Crown Court if magistrates decide that if convicted, the appropriate sentence would be more than they have the power to give.
• He or she is charged jointly with another person aged 18 or more, when both should be dealt with in the Crown Court.

There may be a number of hearings to deal with legal issues before the trial begins. As a general rule the more complicated cases will take longer to get to trial and have more hearings before the trial because the prosecution and defence have more preparation to do. You do not have to attend these hearings.

Before the trial is fixed, the prosecutor will:

• ask the police to contact you and find out when it would be inconvenient to come to court to give evidence; and
• serve all the evidence including copies of the statements, on the defence lawyer. Where possible, prosecutors will try to "agree" your evidence with the defence lawyer. This means that if the defendant is not arguing with anything you say, your statement can be read to the court instead of you having to go to court and give evidence. This might occur where, for example, the defendant is charged with burgling your house while you were away on holiday. The defendant may well accept that the house was burgled by someone but denies that it was him. You have made a statement saying that your house was burgled but cannot say anything that points to the defendant being the burglar.

At a special hearing known as a pre-trial review in the magistrates'. court and a plea and directions hearing in the Crown Court, the prosecutor and the defence lawyer will tell the court how long they think the trial will take and how many witnesses will have to come to court to give evidence. If the case is long and complicated, it may not be possible to list it for trial at that hearing, because more work has to be done. If this is the case it will be listed for trial at another court hearing after everyone has done the work and is ready.

The court will then fix a date for the trial and do its best to find a date that is convenient to you and all the witnesses (for instance, courts will try to avoid fixing trials when you are on holiday) although it is not always possible to manage this if the result is a long delay until the trial date.

In the Crown Court it is not always possible at the plea and directions hearing to fix a specific date for the trial and the case will instead be put into a list of cases to be tried during a certain period (say two weeks). This list is known as the 'warned list'.

You should be warned for trial as soon as possible after the trial date has been fixed or placed in the warned list

You should receive a letter or telephone call from the police.

If the case is placed in the warned list you will usually be told of the dates when the trial may take place. You should make sure that you are available to attend court on any of the dates in the period when the case is in the warned list. If there is a slot for the trial at some point during the period it is in the warned list you will be warned for that date. In this situation, you may receive a call from the police or one of their caseworkers informing you that you have to go to court the next day.