Lord Justice Leveson, the senior presiding judge in England and Wales, in the lecture at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, said that the use of fixed-penalty notices in some cases had become a farce.<\/p>\n
In one case an offender had accumulated fines to a total of \u00c2\u00a3960![\"Coin\"](\"http:\/\/www.sixthform.info\/lawblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2007\/12\/1p_coin.jpg\")
for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153no fewer than eight notices for theft, presumably shoplifting, and one for drunk and disorderly\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. They were \u00e2\u20ac\u0153all unpaid, with no real prospect of ever being able to pay a single one of them\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.<\/p>\n
In another case, an offender gave the name of a distinguished war hero and the address of the square in which the hero\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s statue stood. The judge said: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Without satisfactory confirmation of identity, again a PND [penalty notice for disorder] becomes a farce.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
The rise of summary justice at the expense of formal hearings in the courts led to 51 per cent of offences being dealt with last year by a caution, on-the-spot fine or cannabis warning. This was the first time in modern criminal history that more than half of offences were dealt with by out-of-court punishments.<\/p>\n
Whole lecture here<\/a><\/p>\n