Editorial: Robbing the Local Court System

THE average teenager in Scone has more technology at their disposal than the Scone Court House and it is costing the local community in terms of police resources, adjournments to other courts which cost participants time and money and depriving the local community of hearing matters directly in the local public interest.

The spirit of local courts is to ensure the community most impacted by a matter is able to hear the matter and that people involved have minimal cost in terms of their time and money to attend court.

The lack of basic technology at Scone is eroding these basic principles of our court system.

Scone does not have an Audio Visual Link (AVL) which is basically a judicially secure Skype system which allows people in custody to appear in court matters from goal.

Instead, when Scone court sits, local police are taken off the local duties to ferry prisoners from various gaols to Scone court and back again, stretching already strained local police numbers and costing the community in police hours.

As Magistrate Prowse often quipped, during many local court matters, it may give the prisoners a chance for an outing and a meal from McDonald’s, but the lack of technology at Scone has other associated costs.

Elizabeth Flaherty, editor of scone.com.au. Photo: Amanda Gaffney-Ray.

Magistrate Prowse championed the principle of local matters being heard locally for the public interest, insisting many matters stay local and attempting to limit the costs for court participants in terms of time and money by not moving matters to other courts unless absolutely necessary.

Magistrate Soars takes a similar commonsense approach, but with everything Magistrates have to weigh in their role, negotiating with all parties to find the best place for a video link and a date that suits everyone is not the best use of their skills or the court’s time.

When a matter comes before the Scone court that requires an AVL or other basic technology to play evidence, the matter is often adjourned, instead of it being dealt with then and there, wasting court time and prolonging matters.

On both occasions that the matter of Jamie Cust has been before the court, both Magistrates have mentioned the matter should be held in Scone, but can’t be due to the lack of an AVL.

The matter, which is firmly in the local public interest, has now been adjourned to Tamworth court and the families of both Mr Cust and the deceased Mr Bebit will have to take a day off work and travel to Tamworth incurring personal costs.

The solicitor representing Mr Cust will not be able to represent Mr Cust in Tamworth and another legal aid solicitor in the Tamworth area will need to be appointed, causing further disruption.

And it is not only the lack of an AVL which is causing disruption to the local court process every month, but also the lack of basic audio visual facilities for evidence in court.

A couple of examples from last month include a local solicitor using his mobile phone on speaker mode to contact a defendant in a civil matter, however it was difficult for the court to hear as there are no speakers in the local court house to project the sound.

And there was also an issue with not having DVD facilities to watch evidence in the court, scone.com.au had a portable DVD player and we were only too pleased to assist the court.

The people at the local court do an outstanding job of ensuring the court process runs as efficiently as possible and work to find the most commonsense solution available, but surely the most commonsense approach and the most cost effective solution is to equip the local court with the basic technologies the broader community now take for granted.

Until that happens, our police, our court staff and people attending court matters all bear the costs of the NSW Department of Justice robbing regional courts of access to basic technologies and expecting everyone else involved with the local court to pick up the tab.

Elizabeth Flaherty
Editor of scone.com.au