Stockton and South Tees Youth Offending Services provide a JOINT Youth Court Service.
Working from within Teesside Magistrates Court, this team of people which comprises of a Court Team Manager, 2 Court Team Officers, 1 Bail Supervision Officer and 1 Administrator, also work covering Teesside Crown Court dealing with all Youth Offending matters.
The Joint Youth Offending Court Team are managed through Stockton Youth Offending Service.
The aims of the court team are:
- To provide an essential and effective communication between relevant agencies and to facilitate timely interventions and assessment of young people who appear before the court.
- To enable the court processes to function efficiently and effectively by providing a professional service at all times.
- To contribute to performance measures as set out in the Youth Justice Plan for both youth offending services.
- To ensure that reports and information are prepared and available so as to promote the swift administration of justice.
- To provide a wide range of services which will facilitate informed decision making by the court in relation to remands and ensure best practice once decisions are made.
- To ensure the youth offending team provide accurate information and services to the court, youth offending services and service users.
- To promote the use of bail support interventions including ISSP where appropriate.
- To ensure that the information flow throughout the youth offending system is clear and precise so as to allow for a coherent, co-ordinated and consistent joint service to be developed.
The Youth Court Team offers the Magistrates court a Saturday on-call service for those young people who have been charged or placed before a court out side normal office hours; the cases we are particularly interested in are those where a remand to custody may be likely or the young person is a Persistent Young Offender.
One area where we have been particularly proficient is with Stand down reports; these are reports which are carried out on the day of a young person attending court. Each Stand down report is a significant saving for the Youth Offending Service in time and resource whilst also enabling the swift administration of justice. We must stress that Stand downs are only carried out where the courts are satisfied they have enough information about a young person to make the best and most well informed decision about sentencing a young person. Any doubt will result in a Pre-sentence report being requested.
Since the court team was launched in October 2003 we have made significant strides forward in building professional working relationships with all court services representatives, our team are regarded very highly and a recent review of our court service it was given very positive feedback from court personnel, DJ's, Senior legal advisors, solicitors, etc.
For more information contact the Court Team directly or the Youth Offending Service.
