How doth the court sit solitary...

Quomodo sedet sola civitas plena populo! Facta est quasi vidua...Now, as you may recall, I have, like Peter Cook’s E L Wisty, never really had the Latin
for judging.

In fact, I’m ashamed to say, my old law dictionary is stuffed full of Latin phrases that I have absolutely no idea what they mean and how they are deployed. Frankly, who cares? But here is a quotation from the Bible (Lamentations 1:1): “How doth the City sit solitary, that was full of people...”. It is the lament for a fallen Jersualem, the temple destroyed.

I am struck by this as we take a tour round Courtly Manor, that once splendid citadel of the criminal law. When we were growing up there were courts full of people – there were people called outdoor clerks who had ‘the file’, and would sit behind you, take notes, help calm the agitated and reassure the anxious, and would know what was going on. How busy were the corridors and halls and conference rooms of Courtly Manor! See now the empty corridors where once dashed gowned counsel ran from court to court on a busy Friday, briefs spilling out of their clutches as they hoped against hope that they might manage to get all seven cases done before lunch.

See the now near-empty waiting areas where the masses once waited for their appeals to take place. Remember the busy scenes at the many wings of Courtly Manor, where judges presided in splendour, wheeling in and wheeling out the various and varied appeals, despatching business like knives through butter.

See where the prison officers one sat, the antique progenitors of something now called G4S. Never did it seem then that ‘the van’ was late – our vans always seemed to be on time in the hazy glow of reflection. And, on our tour, see the now deserted courts in various wings around the whole estate of Courtly Manor – scenes of great glory, trials great and small, speeches, verdicts and sentences now idle, empty and mothballed.

And see now the dining halls of Courtly Manor, where once there were egg and chips on demand, a daily cooked breakfast and never ending coffee, chocolate bars and sad-lookinag fruit to keep body and soul together.

See where the barristers used to gather, where the defence and prosecution would agree interview edits or the inadmissible parts of statements, where offers were made and considered. Now it is no more, shut and locked and unlit. No more does the coffee percolator percolate, no more does the canteen provide strange flat fish on a Friday that looked as if they had been reversed over by the van (turning up late), no more the bacon sandwiches, the cups of tea – no more, not even a panini. See the empty halls that were so full of people..

Eheu, eheu, eheu...Alas, alas, alas... SJ

Felix is the pen name of a criminal barrister practising from London

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