Hi welcome back today I got two videos for you hence the magical change of clothes you'll
see in a minute the first video right here right now is on two topics which is the difference
between a magistrate trial and a crown court trial and the second topic been what is a
joint enterprise in the second video is a story from the pole that over 700 of you voted
in so thank you for that so 20% of you voted for why I've never worked for anyone else
so that that is going live today that link below in the meantime on with today show the
first of those is to explain a magistrates trial and how that compares with a trial in
the Crown Court so first of all just to get the terminology right it is a trial whether
it's in the magistrates court whether it's in the Crown Court some people certainly on
my channel have referred to some instances as a hearing now the difference between a
hearing and a trial you can think of it as the trial is where the court hears the full
evidence and comes to a decision a hearing might be on a very discrete issue for example
bail that can be heard in the magistrates or in the Crown Court or in a civil matter
an application can be heard where's that might not be the full trial those we would refer
to as a hearing but where the court hears the full evidence in other words in a criminal
case the prosecution's case and the defence case and any witnesses that are necessary
all of that would be considered a trial it may happen in a matter of hours it might happen
in one full day it might be several days or it might even be several weeks or even months
in the most complex cases first of all you should know that a trial in the magistrates
court and the Crown Court broadly follow the same procedure although there are procedural
differences in the magistrates court to the Crown Court and the main differences are what
I'm going to focus on in this short segment now there are two principal differences between
the Magistrate's Court and the Crown Court when it comes to criminal trials the first
of those which should be relatively obvious is that the Magistrate's Court tends to deal
with the less serious cases and the Crown Court broadly deals with more serious cases
I say broadly and generally because if an offence is what we call an indictable offence
that means it can be heard in the Crown Court but it can also be heard in the magistrates
court and that depends on a couple of things first and foremost it will depend on whether
or not the magistrates court except jurisdiction in other words they will have a summary of
the facts and the seriousness of the case and make a decision as to whether or not it
should be going to the Crown Court if that decision is made straightaway then the case
will be sent forthwith to the Crown Court and the defendant will have no choice this
is known as the magistrates court declining jurisdiction to try the case in the magistrates
court a situation where a case might end up in the Crown Court but starred in the magistrates
court is where the magistrates court accepts jurisdiction and tries the case there but
then on the conclusion of the case decides that its sentencing powers are not great enough
and the defendant should be sentenced by a Crown Court judge so then the cases sent at
the conclusion to the Crown Court for sentence this is known as sending a case to the Crown
Court for sentence if an offence is a summary only offence that it can only be heard in
the magistrates court whereas if it is an either way offence which means it could be
heard in the magistrates court or it could be heard in the Crown Court all it's an indictable
only offence those are offences that can be tried on an indictment that makes them indictable
if an offence is either way that means the defendant can elect Crown Court trial even
in the event that the magistrates court accepts jurisdiction so you might have that scenario
where the magistrates court said yes we can hear the case but then the defendant elects
Crown Court trial and then is tried by a judge and a jury there of course the more rules
and exceptions such as the age of the defendant with the defenders been tried with someone
else for example going to more details in another video for those that this brings us
to the second principal difference between the Magistrate's Court and a crown court in
any case civil or criminal there are going to be what we call findings there is going
to be findings of law and findings of fact a finding of law will be a decision on how
the law applies in this particular case finding of fact is going to be when evidence has been
heard by a court and a decision has been made as to what actually happened this is known
as a finding of fact for example whether or not a person was at a given time at a given
date is a finding of fact whether a given person did a certain act in a certain place
at a certain time is a finding of fact so the court would hear all of the evidence from
different witnesses perhaps CCTV evidence perhaps documentary evidence DNA evidence
all of those kinds of things and the court is going to make a finding of fact as to what
actually happened these two findings the finding of law and the finding of fact come together
so that the court to make a decision that the court in terms of the magistrates court
is made up of either three magistrates all one district judge a district judge being
a full-time professional judge now in the magistrates court these three magistrates
or the district judge will be responsible for both the findings of law and the findings
of fact in other words you have the same tribunal the same panel either the magistrates or the
district judge making findings of law in other words whether a piece of evidence is admissible
or not so in the scenario where there is some evidence but there's legal arguments as to
its admissibility those magistrates or the district judge may rule that that evidence
is not admissible in the trial however those magistrates or the district judge will also
be responsible for the findings of fact in the same case and this is the second principal
difference between the magistrates court and the Crown Court in the Crown Court it is the
Crown Court judge who is making findings of law however it is the jewellery make findings
of fact this is the fundamental difference in my view between the magistrates court and
the Crown Court in the magistrates court prosecutor need to convince the magistrates or a district
judge of a finding of fact whereas in the Crown Court the prosecutor needs to convince
all of the jury or a majority with the majority ruling from the judge of a particular finding
the fact in other words if the prosecutor wants to convince the Crown Court that a particular
person was in a particular place at a particular time or did a certain thing it is the jury
that this prosecutor needs to convince beyond reasonable doubt or as the direction goes
so that the jury are sure that that is a fact put forward by the prosecutor and conversely
the defendant or the defendant's representative in a magistrates court needs to raise sufficient
doubt for the magistrates or the district judge and in the Crown Court the defendant
or defendants representative need only raise sufficient doubt for members of the jury as
to whether or not a certain thing happened or a certain fact should be found the starting
point for a jury is that all of the jury members should agree on a verdict which put forward
by a single person only when what we call a majority direction is given to the jury
by the judge Will the judge and the court except a majority of the jury on a particular
verdict but again I go into more detail about specific jewellery findings in another video
so join either the second topic to talk about today is that of joint enterprise or is it
sometimes known as secondary liability you may have heard terms where someone is an accessory
to a particular crime so there is a robbery someone may be an accessory to robbery or
an accessory to burglary and so on generally the way this works is that there is a principle
actor the main person who is carrying out the crime and someone who is helping this
main person carry out that crime for example the getaway driver the Lookout or someone
else who is generally assisting or contributing or participating in that principle crime was
a fairly recent case in 2016 where the Supreme Court got involved to restore the mental element
all the intention behind parties in what we call secondary liability or joint enterprise
but again more analysis on that in another video the main point to take away from this
brief overview is that if two parties come together to agree their roles in a particular
crime even if one of them has a lesser role but jointly they've agreed that the outcome
is that a particular crime is going to take place with either one of them being the principal
actor then both of them are going to incur some liability one exception might be where
the principal act has gone far beyond what they had agreed their respective roles supposed
to be the that was an interesting summary of the difference between a magistrates trial
in the Crown Court trial don't forget to check out my story linked below that 20% of you
in the poll voted for lodging and see you next time