Dear Members
Phew, we made it to the bank holiday weekend. Whichever room you choose to spend it in, we wish you a safe and restful break.
I would like to extend my sincere thanks to our committee who have worked tirelessly over the last few weeks to ensure our members have been kept up to date.
I would also like to thank our members for taking the time to report to us those police stations not following the national protocol and courts failing to accommodate government guidance on social distancing and basic hygiene. Your communication is helping keep us all safe.
An update before your weekend starts:
Support of our Joint Message on Police Station & Magistrates’ Court Attendance:
We now have 90 firms as well as numerous individual solicitors supporting our Message. Please see the attached document.
If your firm would like to sign up to our Message, please email us at admin@lccsa.org.uk
Police Stations:
Presenting a united front has helped lead to the roll out of a National Interview Protocol - https://www.lccsa.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/KH-National-Protocol-02.04.20.pdf
The first weekly review meeting took place this morning. I was able to relay to the NPCC leads those specific police stations either outright refusing to partake in the protocol or failing to follow it using the examples you have been emailing us. Those individual police stations will now be written to again and a direct channel of communication has now been opened up with Met Operations for us to continue to report back problems you have with specific stations. Please therefore continue to email us your examples but also ensure you are making complaints at the time to the Duty Inspectors, keeping your own detailed notes and using The Law Society’s complaint form - https://www.caseratio.co.uk/security/complaintform It is this data that is being fed into the “Gold Command” meetings. Current feedback is that the number of complaint forms is not reflecting the number of emails we are seeing so please do make use of this form.
Magistrates’ Courts:
Tests are continuing on the Cloud Video Platform needed to roll out defence practitioners being able to appear remotely by video.
Croydon Magistrates’ Court is one of the main testing sites. At present, only cases from Brixton and Walworth Road Police Stations are taking part. Equipment is still being sourced for Croydon Police Station.
If you wish to attend Croydon Magistrates’ Court remotely (weekdays only), a user guide, joining instructions and FAQ’s can be found in the attached documents.
You will need to follow this process which is “hosted” by a member of HMCTS staff:
1. Email dedicated inbox cvp.croydon@justice.gov.uk mailbox details of the defendant you are representing together with your contact number;
2. In return you will receive details of how to join the video hearing;
3.If you need to have a conference with your client beforehand, please ensure you provide a contact number to the HOST and they will notify Police Custody.
Testing has also now started at Bromley Magistrates’ Court. The same process as above but you will need to email dedicated inbox cvp.bromley@justice.gov.uk
HMCTS are working hard to roll this out across all the London Magistrates’ Courts currently opening for hearings as soon as possible.
This is quite a good link to assist with the technology – “Joining a Meeting”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpRTHL-w1KY&
Your feedback on how this works will be most appreciated whilst HMCTS are still in the testing phase and before it is rolled out to the wider Court estate.
DSCC:
Your concerns about the DSCC have been raised with the LAA and those responsible for managing the call centre contract including the website being down, calls from private numbers, giving out new reference numbers to the police where you have refused to return a case and the “Covid-negative” information being relayed in first calls. They will be looking into these issues and reviewing the “script” being used by call handlers now that government advice has being changed in light of asymptomatic people being able to still spread the virus. Do let us know if these issues do not improve over the next week or so. You can also use the complaints email address complaints@dutysolicitors.org and copy in your Contract Managers.
LAA:
Secure File Exchange is being rolled out which will allow you to share CRM7’s electronically. The LAA however is still accepting these by post at this time.
Handy Tip: If you are in dispute with the LAA about PPE (of the paper kind!), you can give them access to a specific case on the DCS by calling them.
I raised concern about the lack of organisation and communication with regards to Duty Solicitor arrangements. They are going to look into how they can more proactively inform firms when they will be required to attend Court and where given that some courts are temporarily closed. They will also look into providing “hotlines” into individual Courts for practitioners to be able to promptly communicate any problems with covering Duty Solicitor slots.
They have confirmed that we will not be penalised for claiming travel from home addresses during the Covid-period.
These are just a few highlights from the last couple of days. We encourage you to keep checking the MOJ, LAA and The Law Society websites for the most up to date information and to sign up for the daily HMCTS email update.
Let’s see what next week brings us. In the meantime, have a safe and pleasant long weekend.
Kerry Hudson
President LCCSA
PO BOX 72880
LONDON
N2 2EY
07974395156