DJ Philips in da court house

Regular readers '“ and I am grateful to both of them '“ might be surprised by the tone of this column. I am not bitching. I am not complaining. Weirdly, I am positive and forward looking and have hope singing in my wizened heart. I have spent a day at the West London Dedicated Drugs Court, where good people try to do good things.

District Judge Justin Philips is an unlikely legal hero. His private email address begins with 'stompie' '“ the gleeful Afrikaans for 'short arse' '“ his language in and out of court is on the ripe side and his dress sense is appalling.

This means more than a suit with nasty wide chalky stripes or a too pink shirt. This means a virulent orange-striped tank top, baggy chinos and trainers which if they had seen better days saw them before he found them in a skip.

Drug rehabilitation requirements

A barrister, ex-Recorder, and, as I recall, a fairly alarming stipendiary magistrate, he dresses like this for the drugs courts which are his passion and his baby, conceived when he was the district judge responsible for conducting the regular progress reviews required under drug testing and treatment orders, (now drug rehabilitation requirements (DRR) added to community sentences). DRR reviews keep tabs on the defendant's drug use by regular compulsory urine tests, with resentencing as the alternative looming over backsliders.

Generally, they are less formal than conventional hearings, and the aim is that the same judge deals with them throughout the review. Crown court judges take their wigs off for them, and the defendant can go into the witness box or side of the court rather than the dock. The aim of the process is to reduce drug use and drug-related crime, and good it is too.

But the drugs court at West London is something else. Philips saw an opportunity to extend reviews into a support system aimed at salvaging his clientele from drugs and putting them back into life again. Not just crime reduction, but setting people free. Utterly committed, almost certainly infuriating, rottweiller determined, wildly idiosyncratic (possibly deliberately, as eccentrics can get away with stuff the conventional cannot) Philips fought for his baby through a difficult gestation. There were, put politely, certain bureaucratic obstacles, dissing by coppers for whom drugs courts were a burglar's charter, a frosty reception from other agencies and a fair few turf wars.

For example, officialdom said lay magistrates had to be involved, and that they would never agree to such regular commitment. Philips said this was bollocks (his favourite legal term) and consulted the chair of the lay bench. But of course we will, she said, and threw her energies into it. Now there are six courts run by district judges and lay benches, serving about 100 offenders in total, with an apparent success rate of 30 to 40 per cent.

That is success in West London's terms, more ambitious than government targets '“ it means no more offending and no more drugs. If these figures are anywhere near statistically correct, it is an astonishing achievement.

Like all good parents, Philips is now supported by a cracking set of god parents '“ the borough drug intervention programme, local social care agencies, the chair of the justices and two female lay magistrates having a sneaky fag outside whose enthusiasm for the rewards and achievements of their work was remarkably moving. And he has recruited professionals '“ an addiction psychiatrist and a drugs adviser '“ who are so committed to these courts that they give their time and expertise for free. Even the police have changed their mind about the burglar's charter '“ a 23 per cent drop in acquisitive crime in the borough over the court's first completed quarter was very influential in this.

The courts work on the carrot and stick principle. The stick, one suspects, is applied reasonably lightly and as a last resort, but it is applied, and the threat of imprisonment is real. The carrot is proper and nutritious food. It is a mix of advice and practical help with social and housing problems, good relationships between the bench and its clients, informality and praise, expert medical and drug addiction input, and what may well be the magic ingredient '“ a culture of respect. The judges there see their clientele as people who deserve help, whose struggle against drugs is real and difficult, and whose faltering steps to sobriety are to be applauded.

Justin '“ always Justin in court '“ applauds like mad, knows his people intimately, remembers everything about them even when the file is missing, listens with intense care, and ends each session with a ritual hug borrowed from the US drugs court model. Although somewhat cringe-making to watch at first, the hugs do make sense: they are a signifier of shared humanity.

The review meeting too is a shared process, where the reviewees talk freely, often hilariously. One young man bounded in wearing a 'high vis' jacket. Justin, not about to miss that trick, roared at him: 'Have you nicked that or did you get a job?' The gratified answer was a job, only temporary, but a job nonetheless.

Clean for eight days

Another man, middle-aged with a hideously entrenched habit, was clean for eight days. Asked how he did such a great thing his wry, self-aware answer was, ' I knew I was coming to see you'. A sad young man due to attend the funeral of a friend who overdosed spills out his worries about coping with this without drugs. A man graduating from his order, clean for months, off to write a play, almost certainly a direct result of Justin 'sentencing' him to 11 days of education. Another reviewee talks for ages about his tiny flat: 'It's brilliant '“ it's self-contained,' he says, pride all over his face. A year ago he had done nothing but cry.

This is not sentencing as we know it, but something akin to a life support system for people who need it most. It is enough to put a spring in the step of us all.

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