Martyn Russell, a member’s husband, explained the magistracy’s history, from being set up by Edward III over 660 years ago, to present times.

Today there are only 17,000 magistrates, down from 32,000 in 2018 when the police began giving “out of court” fines that dealt with minor criminality at source, reducing the need for the amount of courts from 315 to 150, each costing around £1,150 a day to run.

Magistrates range in age from 18-75 years, need no qualifications, are unpaid and over half are women. The maximum sentence a magistrate can give is one year, and two years in the criminal youth court, and it costs £98,000 a year to keep an offender in prison. About 98% of criminal cases start in the magistrates’ court and 94% are actually dealt with there; the rest move on to Crown Court, where defendants can have a jury.

Martyn said that the hardest decision a magistrate had to consider was whether to allow a defendant bail as, under the Magna Carta of 1215, they are deemed innocent until proved guilty. He ended his fascinating talk with a Quiz won by Diana Davies, who herself had been a magistrate for many years.

If you would like to join the IW Club’s meetings and coffee mornings where the accent is on fellowship, fun and a greater emphasis on home-spun entertainment, please contact Secretary, Elaine Muir, on: 0754 3973666.

Sue Meadows