Centeniers in the Magistrate's Court - Centeniers G Cornwall and M L'Amy - Transcript - 21 September 2006

SOCIAL AFFAIRS PANEL

Review of Centeniers Role in the Magistrates Court

THURSDAY, 21 SEPTEMBER 2006

Panel:

Deputy F.J. Hill of St. Martin  - Chairman Deputy D.W. Mezbourian of St. Lawrence Deputy A.E. Pryke of Trinity

Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier

Mr. C. Ahier (Scrutiny Officer)

Witnesses:

Centenier M. L'Amy of St. Peter Centenier G. Cornwall of St. Brelade

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I will begin by welcoming you to our scrutiny panel and also thank you for coming. I am Deputy Bob Hill, the Chairman of the Social Affairs Scrutiny Panel, and my 2 colleagues to my right will introduce themselves. Before they do I will apologise for those others who are not here. Deputy Pryke had been here this morning. She is assisting with a funeral for former Constable Picot. Deputy Pitman is not well.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Good afternoon.  I am Deputy Mezbourian of St. Lawrence .

Deputy J.A. Martin of St. Helier :

I am Judy Martin, Deputy for St. Helier No. 1.

Mr. C. Ahier :

Charlie Ahier , Scrutiny Officer.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

You will have received a notification informing you that you are covered by privilege this afternoon. Can I just ask that when you do speak, please, nice and clear. If you can try to aim at the microphone so much the better because over in that far corner we have people who will be recording it. This will be transcribed and when it is you will be entitled to a copy. It will be a public document, as indeed will be the report when it is completed. With that I will begin and I will start by saying you are aware of our terms of reference. I will reiterate that there may seem to be a little bit of inconsistency, if it is easier if I use your first name from time to time rather than being too formal and I forget the Centenier and say "Malcolm". Can I also say thank you for this report. I would like to compliment you on the amount of work and time and trouble you have taken. I do not agree with everything, I am sure you will not agree with everything we do, but I think what we will all agree is that you have done a tremendous amount of work. It is a useful document. It also will form the basis of our questioning here this afternoon.

Centenier M. L'Amy of St. Peter :

As you are aware, Deputy , I was working on that while I was on holiday in Spain from the emails that were being sent back and forth from that particular jurisdiction, so I do thank you very much. Do you want Centenier Cornwall and I to introduce ourselves as well?

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Yes, I ought to have done that. I am sorry for not doing so and also what is very important is to tell us your official role. As you are on my left, maybe start with you first, please.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I am Centenier Malcolm L'Amy. I am Chef de Police for the Parish of St. Peter . I became a Centenier in August 2003 when I walked off the street to help out the Parish of St. Peter . I am now in my second term. I sit on various committees. I am just trying to think of all of them that I sit on.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Some of the questions will be about you anyway, so thank you.

Centenier G. Cornwall of St. Brelade:

Centenier Geoff Cornwall, Parish of St. Brelade. I have been a Centenier for getting on for 20 years now. I am at present Chairman of the Comité des Chefs de Police and I was formerly President of the former Centeniers Association.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

There was a slight discrepancy between our terms of reference and what you say on page 4. We will use this as a basis for our questions. On page 4 it says: "A statement was made that the scrutiny panel will look at the traditional role of Centenier in the criminal justice process." Our terms of reference really were slightly different from that. Would you like to agree with that to start off with? Professor Rutherford carried out a review of the criminal justice policy and he made 10 recommendations, 9 of which the Home Affairs Committee accepted and one they did not. Under the criminal justice policy the document says: "Having consulted the Attorney General at an early stage in the policy-setting process, the Home Affairs Department decided it will not pursue the Rutherford Report recommendation that a public prosecution service be created. This could not justified on cost grounds and result in Centeniers losing their traditional role in presenting cases in the Magistrate's Court." This review is really finding out what formed that decision and that is why we are here this afternoon. What we are saying is what you have on page 4 is not quite right. It is not going to make a huge difference as long as we agree that what you have there is not exactly what we have.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

We understand that, Deputy . I think it is also worth saying that the whole purpose of Malcolm's visit to Nottingham, and the subsequent report, was conceived as part of our ongoing training process before you had announced this inquiry. It was by luck as much as anything else that this work was already in progress. So, it was designed for a different purpose, initially.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

It is strange how it is quite by coincidence as well because when one looked at the timing we were almost thinking about the same thing at the same time. It is a good point to make because I do not think anyone wants to think that we have construed this in conjunction with you or you have done it in opposition to what we were proposing to do.

Centenier G. Cornwall: No, it was work in progress.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

You will recall earlier on I did say that I think what we were doing should not impinge on what you were doing and vice versa and we felt it would take us a certain amount of time to do it. I know you did ask if we would consider holding back on what we were doing. We felt it would be unnecessary because we felt what you would be doing would be running along the same lines. As it turns out, and probably with hindsight, it was the best decision because it has taken us a time to get to where we are as indeed it has taken time for you to get where you are.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Just to make reference to page 3 and to reiterate what Geoff has said. An email went to Superintendent John Pearson on 23rd January and this really came about because of the new Magistrate's Court. I wanted to see how the UK system worked so that we could look at training for the future of the Centeniers. It took from 23rd January until the middle of May to get all the necessary permissions granted with Nottingham and I was most grateful to Nottingham Police Force, including the Chief Constable, for being able to spend a week with them.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Rather than ask you both questions, if I direct this first lot of questions to Malcolm, because they form the report, and you can answer them and then we have some separate ones for you, Geoff, in your role. You have told us, Malcolm, you have been a Centenier. What training did you expect to get when you became a Centenier and did you receive what you were hoping to get?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I had to undergo an awful lot of training in the first few months, firstly as my role as a Centenier to present cases in court, and secondly as a police officer to be able to go out and patrol and police the parish. I was elected in July 2003, August I was sworn in, and I think it was in October 2003 that I did both the police style training that was being undertaken at the time and also the court training that was being run by the legal advisers in conjunction with Centenier Danny Scaife who I believe you have heard from this morning. This is where the Centeniers who were there, most of whom were relatively new, were learning how to oppose bail when somebody had committed such a serious offence that it was obviously felt that allowing them their freedom was not within the public interest. Also the situation of jurisdiction, whether or not the Magistrate's Court had the power to deal with the offence or offences that were before them or whether the matter had to be referred to the Royal Court and therefore indicted to the Royal Court. That formed a great grounding. Also I did spend some considerable time in just sitting in the Magistrate's Court listening to other cases and how experienced Centeniers were presenting.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

We are told, and it is quite understandable, that there will be gaps between those who have a lot of enthusiasm for the role and those who fill the role simply because they feel out of duty to their parish they would like to do it. It would appear from here that you are one of those who obviously enjoy the job. You feel if you are going to do a job you do it properly.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

If I am going to do something I want to do it correctly or to the best of my ability and then to try and find methods to assist and help some of my fellow Centeniers. I have also done that in other aspects of my life where I will go out and help other people. That is why I decided that I wanted to become a Centenier. The role of the Centenier in court was not a primary consideration of becoming a Centenier. It was to help the parish. I had been asked many times by previous Constables, apart from Constable Tom du Feu, to become involved in the Honorary Police and I said I did not have the time to dedicate, which I did not at that particular time. Then I felt that for various reasons the time was right to dedicate some time and I wanted to do it and I still do want to do it to the best of my ability. I do not say that I do it perfectly every time but we are all human with regard to that.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Centenier, you say you were sworn in in August 2003.  When did you present your first case in court?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

It was probably late September or early October and these were just simple cases of people that were speeding to get used to reading out a charge sheet in court. For some people this can be quite daunting, to stand in front of the Magistrate. From things I have done in the past I am used to going on stage, I am used to presenting to the best of my ability various things in a stage format. So it did not worry me to read out charge sheets and to try and present cases.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Had you received any formal training prior to presenting your first case?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

No.  The assistance was given by the previous Chef de Police.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Would you say that your initial training was very much on the job?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Yes, it probably was but having observed what was going on with the previous Chef who I was just shadowing. I think in the first week of being a Centenier we had somebody come through the airport who had £45,000 worth of a class A drug internally concealed. I saw at first hand what was going on and how the previous Chef de Police dealt with the matter and started to begin to understand some of the serious offences that were going on in the Island and saying: "I am sitting listening to what is going on." A hands-on approach and listening to what goes on has a much greater benefit than sitting in a classroom for months and months and months, where you see other people present.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I was just going to say that I think it is quite right that people who are not used to this sort of public set- up are very phased initially, quite naturally. I was very lucky when I came into the system because I had several years of experience in Hill Street. I knew the personalities. I had worked with many of them and even some of the Magistrates had been colleagues. So from that point of view I was in a very privileged position coming in but I have to acknowledge that for somebody coming in from outside it is a pretty daunting thing to be faced with the court for the first few times. Most people do settle down to it once they realise that they are among friends and that everybody there is available to assist in all possible ways, from the Magistrate to the Greffier to the legal advisers to the court staff generally. The sensible Centenier very quickly makes contacts with the people around him or her and settles down and becomes much more comfortable.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I suppose it can be compared to when you first became Deputies in the States and first had to stand up in the States and either make a small speech or propose something. Standing up in front of the Magistrate is not something that necessarily comes naturally to everybody and you may perhaps have felt it daunting the first time you stood up in the States.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Deputy Hill has referred you to our terms of reference and the third one is: "To examine the system of training and assessment provided to Centeniers for their work in the Magistrate's Court." So we do have a number of questions that are based on the training aspect of the Centeniers being in court. With that in mind, we are interested to get some more information about the Centeniers Training Group. Would you be able to give us some information on that?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Yes. We need to go back in time. There used to be the Centeniers Association and the Vingteniers and COs Association and for many years it was thought that there should be one honorary police association which came into form, I believe, in November 2004. It was from there that we then formalised a large number of committees. We had the Centeniers Co-ordinating Group which deals with many prosecution matters. An offshoot of that is the Centeniers Training Group which I sit on with Centenier Danny Scaife and Centenier Terry Renouf . Unfortunately, because of Centenier Terry Renouf 's family problems that he has had, he has been unable to assist us over the last 9 months, I suppose, and that became difficult. We had also asked for assistance from the late Centenier Bob Burrow and it was with great sadness that unfortunately Bob passed away. So it has really been down to Danny and myself to try and move this on. Danny and I are also involved in virtually every other committee, including the training of all Honorary Police. For some time we have been working on a manual. I do not know whether this will be produced only in CD (compact disc) format for everybody or whether it will be produced in hard copy. I have brought one for you to have a look at. This is quite a thick manual. Part of that has been written by Advocate Robin Morris, who is here this afternoon, on how the Magistrate's Court works. There is other documentation in there with regard to the AG's guidelines with regard to jurisdiction, what are the 4 reasons that you can ask for bail to be opposed, all of this we are hoping to have produced for every Centenier, all 56 of them, by Christmas. You have to bear in mind that where the training is concerned, most of the time the finance of this comes from my pocket and it comes from Centenier Danny Scaife's pocket. We do not have a budget for training. We are also very privileged to have the assistance of the 2 legal advisers who are here this afternoon who give of their time, like we give of our time, to try and train and improve Centeniers. Prior to 2002 I do not think there was any formal training given to any Centenier.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I have to say that is not strictly speaking true but it was much more of a hotch potch and piecemeal thing

and from time to time the Centeniers Association would say: "It is about time we had a training session." I remember we had a full day where the Magistrates and I think probably the legal advisers came and we had pretty well a full day's event at St. Paul's Centre for all the then current Centeniers, but it was very much more a hit and miss thing and it was not structured in the way that we now envisage.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Will you explain to us what the training process is for a Centenier to present cases in court and also how that ties in with the training that they receive for a Parish Hall Inquiry?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I think you will find in the document that I produced for you the training schedule that we did last year.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

It is on page 60.  We do read our documents you see, Centenier.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Thank you very much. It is a couple of months since I have read this document. Between pages 60 and 61 we set out various sessions. We did not call it modules; we set out 7 sessions and we started off with the Parish Hall Inquiry. We had great concerns with regard to the Parish of St. Lawrence because they literally had 4 new Centeniers. We tried to introduce a mentoring system. Going back in time, when I first became a Centenier, I became aware of Centenier Scaife's abilities in the court system and on many occasions I would ring Danny, sometimes late at night, and say: "Danny, I have this case. It is coming up. What do you think? I am at the airport, I am at the harbour, to charge somebody" and he would give me specific advice. I did go to see Danny and spent quite some time with him over a very complicated case which I am not prepared to discuss.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

We do not need to know about it.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Danny gave me some very good advice and from that I went to see the Attorney General before the case moved on. Bearing in mind that I felt that Danny was providing a mentoring system for me in the early days, we have tried to introduce a mentoring system to Centeniers that have just come into the system. It was very, very difficult and we did feel very much for those Centeniers in St. Lawrence who had nobody really to turn to. We provided them telephone numbers that they could ring and that they could get in contact with us. Going back to the Parish Hall Inquiry system, we wanted to show some of the new Centeniers how the Parish Hall Inquiry system worked. We devised, which did take some time, fictitious cases that would be at a Parish Hall that they were likely to come across. We used experienced Centeniers to play the part of the accused which became quite interesting in explaining: "Just a minute, we are going to have to stop you here because you cannot do that and this is why." I had some emails after from experienced Centeniers who came along and said: "Thank you very much for the presentation that you did on the Parish Hall Inquiries at St. Peter's Parish Hall . It was excellent, we thoroughly enjoyed it." It was quite light hearted. We then took it a stage further of showing people how to charge and why they should charge or why they should not charge before bringing in the legal advisers. It was a lot easier in the old Magistrate's Court in Seal Street because that was part of St. Helier and access to that particular building was very easy in the evening. It gave new Centeniers an actual flavour of what it was like to be in court. Since the new court building, which is wonderful, we do not have the same access in the evening and we will be trying to address that shortly. Having taken people through the decision of whether or not --

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I think we will take it as read, otherwise we are going to spend all afternoon going through something which we have on paper.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

I think I was looking at it in a broader sense rather than every session that you have had there. How do you ensure that every Centenier receives adequate training?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

We cannot ensure that. We do not have the power to say to any particular parish: "You will do this." There is no provision in the law for us to do that. I do not think that there is any Centenier that has ever refused to go on any training. We just do not have the power to say: "Sorry, you are not very good, you cannot present this case in court" because we do not have the jurisdiction, unless given to us by a Constable, to charge on behalf of another parish.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

What effect do you think that may have on the case of a Centenier presenting in court, the fact that you may have a Centenier who is not competent at doing that job?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

There are always Centeniers in court that an inexperienced Centenier can refer to. He or she can refer to the legal advisers even on the simplest case and say: "How do I do this?" Perhaps the legal adviser will say: "Go and see the Centenier over there. He will help you through." At times we will help other Centeniers in court by asking the Magistrate: "Would you like me to assist Centenier X with presenting this particular case?" We are always there as a supporting role. I do not say that I get it right all the

time but we do our best to try and support our other Centeniers.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Do you think that sort of thing enhances the image of any establishment, whether it is Honorary Police or States' police, that you have someone who is clearly struggling and it would appear they are struggling simply because they have not been given the training in the first place? Do you think that is acceptable?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It is not ideal and I think we would all accept that the system needs to be improved. As I was saying before, this was already on the cards.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Hopefully we will be able to assist something in that way, who knows.

Centenier G. Cornwall: I hope so.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I refer to the Jersey Judicial, Legal and Services Review of 1990. I think it was known as the Lecane Report. It said there: "It should be obligatory for a newly-elected Centenier, before he presents any case in court, to receive some training on presentation and prosecution of cases. The same obligation should attach to an existing Centenier on re-election."

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think "some training" is too loose because I think one would have said until probably 5 years ago most Centeniers had come up through the ranks, had been working with Centeniers, either as COs or Vingteniers. They had been sitting in on Parish Hall Inquiries. When it became apparent that a particular individual was likely to become a Centenier this is what happened to me. My Chef de Police at that time, who happened to be Jurat Vibert , former Centenier, retired Jurat Vibert , and I shadowed him and his colleagues to some extent, only for a matter for 6 or 8 weeks but I had been to court, I had been to the police station to conduct charges with my colleagues. This still should happen. The problem arises when you have somebody who comes in as a Centenier, in the St. Lawrence situation again, straight from outside and has not had any opportunity to begin to learn the ways of the Honorary Police at any level, let alone the ways to present in court. So, yes, I agree it should happen and we would go along with that completely: there should be some training. The "some training" up to now has been very much at the hands of one's colleague Centeniers. It is one of the responsibilities of the Chefs to see that their colleagues are assisted, at least in their early days. In St. Brelade at the moment we have one comparatively new Centenier. He has had many years of experience, however, as an Honorary Police officer, as a Vingtenier. He has been around, he knows the ropes, and his introduction has been a fairly painless operation because he was well trained by his previous Centenier.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

We heard from a witness this morning about the inconsistency of Magistrates. Could that be a bit daunting also for a new Centenier?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Absolutely. You cannot always tell how a Magistrate is feeling on a particular day and 2 different Magistrates will approach things in rather different manners.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I asked the question this morning and I will ask it again this afternoon. Has it been brought to your attention and, if it has, have you taken any action to address it?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Yes, insofar as periodically I, and now Malcolm, and several of my colleagues meet regularly with the Magistrates and with senior police officers and these things are raised periodically. It is quite clear the 2 Ians, if I may put it that way, do approach things in a rather different manner and that is the way of life. You learn to live with that. I am sure this is a feeling that is understood just as much by the legal advisers as it is by the Centeniers that you have to play to the court that you are addressing at that time.

Deputy J.A. Martin:

Could you clarify for me something you said earlier, Centenier L'Amy, about you and Centenier Scaife? You said that there is no budget for training at all and it is monies coming out of your pockets for this. Was this report also produced through you?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Yes, that report was produced by myself. The funding for going over at the moment has come out of my own personal pocket which, just in physical money of going over there, air flights, hotel accommodation, hire car to move around, has cost me personally £600 or thereabouts, let alone how much it would have cost me in being away from the Island for a week.

Deputy J.A. Martin:

I can obviously see yourself and Centenier Scaife are, and I am not going to comment on anybody else because a lot of people probably are, fit to present or prosecute the cases. As you said, that is really worrying. As a body now, are you pursuing some sort of training budget for Centeniers and who will

you be pursuing it from?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

It would have to come from the Comité des Connétable s. At one time training for all Honorary Police to do policing work, I believe there was a budget given by the previous Home Affairs Committee. When there was budgetary constraints within the States, that was then removed and the finances for that then came from the parishes through the Comité des Connétable s.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

That is still the only source of support we have.

Deputy J.A. Martin:

Have they been approached?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Yes. In fact, one of the recommendations in Malcolm's report is that a proper budget should be established. It is not going to be easy because the parishes themselves are under constraint and getting money from the parishes, even for the ongoing police forces, is not always easy and there is a considerable difference in the way the parishes individually support the Honorary Police. They all do support the Honorary Police to some extent but it is to a greater or lesser extent. It is not consistent.

Deputy J.A. Martin:

You do not feel there is any coming from the Attorney General, right from the top, from the centre, on the legal side? Not the police training but just the court appearances should come from the centre and be compulsory.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

We would love to see that but there does need to be a budget from somewhere. It does not matter very much where the budget is coming from but, yes, it is absolutely imperative there is a proper budget. For this particular matter we can probably find the funds from the Honorary Police Association. I was talking to Malcolm about it yesterday. But that is only this one-off thing. There needs to be a ongoing system.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Who puts that money forward? Do parishes put a certain amount of money aside?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

They have a police budget.  Each parish has a police budget.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Yes. If you ever go to a parish hall for a rates meeting, people look at every penny that is being spent and they like to think they are spending it in their parish. Some of the money from the parishes at the moment is going to a central fund is what you are saying?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Yes, the Comité des Connétable s get a per capita grant, I think, from the parishes. I think it works on a per capita basis.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So the funding is coming from the parishes into a central fund?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Into a central fund and is then distributed by the Constables.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

If there was going to be additional costs for training, there is a mechanism already where the parishes are paying that money through to a central fund so what it would probably lead to is an increase.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It would need to be increased, yes.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

When the Chef de Polices set their budget annually, I certainly set down how much I require for training of my Honorary Police in St. Peter and I increased that this year to £2,500. If we had a maximum number that would be 27 Honorary Police, including the 4 Centeniers, 5 Vingteniers and the rest of them would be Constable Officers. Where the training for Centeniers is concerned, we could increase what we do for every Centenier and I have looked into providing DVDs (digital versatile disc), by doing a training DVD, but, again, this all costs money and I do not have the resources and the ability to fund something of that nature. I have looked into the costings and, yes, it may be that we have to go and seek the advice from the Attorney General who we now regularly have meetings with, at least 4 times a year. Just getting back to St. Lawrence. Because of the St. Lawrence Centeniers situation, we formed a working group to have the law changed so that there would never be a situation again where 4 Centeniers in a parish would come up all within a very short period of time. The election of Centeniers came about where initially there was only one Centenier and then, as time passed, there would be 2 Centeniers per parish and then they were increased at various times to 4 Centeniers. It happens that in some parishes they are bunched up together. We have been working with the Attorney General and Advocate Stephen Pallot to produce draft law which we are still working on, along with Constable Geoffrey Fisher.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Mr. Fisher explained that to us this morning so I think we are aware and obviously that would seem to be something under consideration.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

We would love some funding and if that is part of your recommendation that comes from the States then I would be very pleased to produce a budget for that.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Just to remind you that the process we have is everything is evidence-based, so the more evidence we get the easier it is for us to put those recommendations but we have to get the evidence first.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

If I may refer to page 3 of your report, Centenier, and the second paragraph in which you state that: "Each Centenier would be interviewed with regard to their role in court." Will you tell us, please, whether those interviews have taken place and what conclusions have been reached?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Three-quarters of the Centeniers have been interviewed but because of constraints on my time and Centenier Scaife's time, with the loss of Bob Burrow and with Terry being unavailable, that project is still yet to be completed because there is only so much time in a day that both of us can dedicate to doing these things. The most important report, we felt, was the Nottingham report but there is still this other report that we need to conclude on.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

What questions are you asking the Centeniers with regard to their role in court?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

We wanted to know whether some Centeniers would prefer not to be in court and to get a general flavour. Some people are very good at doing the community policing section; other people enjoy doing both; and some enjoy just the court work. We wanted to find out where the whole of the 56 Centeniers stood with regard to that and whether there was any merit in looking to develop "team prosecution" which was a term that I came up with at the time. So there would be Centeniers that would be dedicated to specific training which is why I wanted to have the information on the dedicated case worker, the DCWs, which is a system that is used in the UK. Professional lawyers were finding their time taken up more and more with the work of minor cases which is where the DCW comes in, except the Centenier has a much greater role than the DCW does in the UK.  I think I explained that in the document.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

For the record, Centenier, perhaps you would explain it to us where the difference is between a DCW and a Centenier?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

The Centenier has the power of charge and the power of bail. He or she has that decision of whether or not when called to police headquarters, at a Parish Hall Inquiry, at the harbour or at the airport, to charge somebody with an offence or offences. We are trained by the legal advisers to never charge too early; make sure that you have all the evidence that is required to have a successful prosecution. If there is no evidence you may be being encouraged by the Customs Department or the States of Jersey Police: "Yes, we want to charge quickly. Yes, let us get this case out. We have got another one coming through" but the Centeniers, having this completely independent role, can sit back and say: "No, we are not going to charge on that particular matter." So, we have this power of charge or bail which the DCW does not have. The DCW can deal in court with a guilty plea. So if it is a simple speeder doing 36 miles an hour in a 20 mile an hour zone, they will present the evidence, it is a guilty plea and that is it. If it is going to be a reserved plea or a not guilty plea then the matter is put off for another court hearing and the DCW would not have any role in that. The DCW does not call the cases, as we do in the Magistrate's Court. I am sure when you have been and viewed the court the Centenier will be asked to stand up and read the charge. That is done by the legal adviser who in our system is the Greffier. Technically the Greffier would stand up in the UK and read the charge out and get the person to confirm the accused's name and address. The only time that the DCW will stand up and say anything is if there is a guilty plea. If there is not, they do not get involved. They also do not appear at all in the Youth Court. They would do very minor breaches of any form of bail condition. They certainly would never do declining of jurisdiction, asking the Magistrate to decline the jurisdiction because the sentencing power was outside of the Magistrate's Court. So, they have a relatively simple role.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Could I just pick you up on that, having a little bit of experience of Magistrate's Court? Is it not really that there are different practices in Jersey Magistrate's Court as opposed to a UK Magistrate's Court? If you go into a UK Magistrate's Court it is generally read from the clerk as opposed to in Jersey it is read from you. While I accept the fact the dedicated case worker might not do some of the things you are doing, reading a charge sheet could really be quite easily done by the Greffier in the court. It is not a terribly onerous responsibility.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

The onerous responsibility is for the Centeniers who normally have to work out how the court is going to run on that particular day. There might be 3 or 4 Centeniers on a court sitting and they will have already spoken with the defence advocate and the legal adviser if the case is of a complicated nature so that the court will run as smoothly as possible and that there will be very few adjournments. Sometimes that does not happen because the advocates for the defence are not ready and we have to have perhaps 2 or 3 adjournments on a morning sitting.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Can I just add one thing. I think the point we skated over perhaps to some extent is the Centenier's power and duty of charge and his responsibility to ensure, as Malcolm has been saying, that there is a prima facie case. I know Deputy Hill's background as a police officer in England with a different system but I think one of the safeguards in the Jersey system is that before anybody can be charged with anything in Jersey a Centenier, who is a layman, must be convinced that there is a prima facie case to answer. I think this protects the individual in a way that is a jewel in our crown here. I think other places may very well be wanting to emulate some of our practices, rather than setting them aside.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Is it the case at the moment that a Centenier may act in the role of investigator, so investigating a case, which he may then be asked to --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

There is nothing at law to stop him doing so. As a matter of practice it does not happen. As a matter of practice I think every single parish now has said if the Centenier has acted as the investigating officer he will not be the officer who conducts a Parish Hall Inquiry or who lays the charge. There may need to be something in the law that says it should not happen but as a matter of practice it does not happen.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

That was going to be my next question, whether it should be in statute?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think nobody would have any difficulty if it were. I think the present system works perfectly well but it is something that has been recognised by the Centeniers themselves, by the Attorney General. I think the Attorney General has put some guidelines out.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

There are some new guidelines which are being drawn up at the moment and are in the hands of the Centeniers Co-ordinating Group to go through, which makes the directive that if, for instance, I have caught somebody who was driving while unfit through alcohol, I would then go down and charge him or her and I would not then present the case at court, because it looks like judge, jury and executioner. We try and maintain that all the time, that if we have arrested the person we would never charge. To the point where, and it has happened to me, where I have got in, with the permission of the constables, a Centenier from another parish because the person that I had arrested was related to one of my other Centeniers, my fourth Centenier was off ill with a broken foot and therefore - so that it was looked at with completely clean eyes - I got in a Centenier from the Parish of St. Ouen to charge on behalf of the Connétable of St. Peter.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

So, at the moment the system is working on a best practice system.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It is working on a best practice, yes.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

We are aware that the Attorney General is heading a working party, the 1864 working party, which I believe is looking at the role of the courts, and perhaps we could just seek clarification from one of the legal advisers on this.

The Deputy of St. Martin : If you like.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Are you aware, either of you, of the 1864? Would you be prepared to confirm what the agreement is? Okay, well, I will say what our understanding is then, as we cannot clarify, and we heard about it from the Magistrate, Mr. Le Marquand, earlier this week. But, from what he told us, our understanding is that the working party is looking at criminal justice with particular regard to the role of the court system over here. My question to you is, are you aware of that and has the Centenier been asked to sit on that working party?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think the answers are officially no and no.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I have been aware only just recently that there is this working party. I believe that the working party was set up more than a year ago, perhaps two years ago, but that is about all I have heard. I do not know what their remit is and I do not know how often they meet.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Well, we will of course be making further inquiries as to what their remit is.

The Deputy of St. Martin : On 12th October.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

But I think one of the questions we will be asking, when we do know their exact remit if they are looking at the court as we have been led to understand, one of the questions we will surely be asking is perhaps why a Centenier has not been asked to sit on that group as the Centenier plays such an important role within the Magistrate's Court.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I believe that what became known as Projet 70, or P70, which was the construction of the new Magistrate's Court, in the initial stages which goes back to, I think, 3 Chef de Polices in St. Peter's ago, who sat on it towards the latter end of P70. There was no representation from any Centenier.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I attended a couple of P70 meetings while the planning of the Magistrate's Court was in hand in the process, and various Centeniers had input into that aspect of it.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Would you say that there was sufficient consultation with the Centeniers?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Yes, I think that the procedures are there, there is a regular senior court users' group that involves the legal advisers, a couple of Centeniers, several senior police officers, the Court Greffier and both senior Magistrates, and we meet on a bi-monthly basis.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Monthly basis, there is one on the 29th.

Mr. L. O'Donnell: And the defence.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

And the defence, I am sorry, yes, and the advocates.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Can I just clarify a point again, on page 4, paragraph 2, the last sentence: "The recommendation was not

accepted due to the cross-implication. It was agreed that the current situation should remain." We are talking about the Rutherford Report. Just for the record, would you accept the fact that that is not quite correct? It was also because it might affect the traditional role of the Centenier.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think that is absolutely true.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So, you accept the fact that it should have been included as part of your ?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Yes, but I do not think at the time I had all the documents that were available that I now have available.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I just want to make sure that we do understand it because that leads us on to question 12 really, where we would like to ask you in what way would the recommendation affect the traditional role of the Centenier, if indeed the Centenier did not present the case.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think it would be a radical change. It would be a nail in the coffin of the whole system. The whole Honorary Police system relies on the fact that the Centenier is able to see matters through from start to finish. The Parish Hall Inquiry depends on the fact that one of the things the Centenier can do at the outcome is to bring a charge. All right, we try to keep as many youngsters out of the formal process as possible, and that side of it has been given considerable support by Helen Miles in her report, which no doubt you have seen and digested. But, I think if you take the Centenier out of the court system it immediately devalues the Parish Hall system and the Parish Hall system I think is absolutely vital. I think we would be crazy, as an Island, to get rid of something - I think I have said it before in another context - that other people are now looking at and saying: "This is a good idea. Why can't we have something like this?" They are not saying: "We're going to take the whole system" but they are certainly looking at the Parish Hall system and the restorative justice aspects and they find that there is a model here which has been running for a long, long time, before anybody thought of restorative justice per se.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Well, restorative justice has been operating in the UK because I know it was certainly operating before I left.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Indeed, but we have a model of it working here and that model has advantages over other systems. So,

the answer to your question is yes, I think it would have a major and deleterious effect on the whole honorary set up.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So, just adding a little bit to that really is the fact that it is not just the fact that he or she would not be going to court, but you do not think it would have any effect on recruiting, on the status of the Centenier. We heard from a witness it may be reduced to seeing a Centenier as no more than a car park attendant.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Well, exactly, I think that is the point. One of the things about the Parish Hall Inquiry it seems to me, the Centenier always explains this particularly to young people who come before him or her, that he has a number of options. There are things that he can deal with at Parish Hall level, there are things that he may deal with at Parish Hall level, there are things that he cannot deal with at Parish Hall level. As soon as you take that out of the equation and all right, it may be a bit non-PC (politically correct), but the fact that the Centenier does wield a metaphorical stick and that stick is if you do not go along with this you may find yourself up before the beak, that is expressing it in very much lay terms, but that is perhaps the way it needs to be expressed to some of the young people who appear before us. If the youngsters know perfectly well that you have no power or authority to do anything much with them, any respect that the position holds - and it is not that I want respect but I think the system needs the respect of the community - I think that would be devalued if it was recognised that the Centenier did not have any powers.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Yes, but are you aware that there has been a system, certainly  in the Metropolitan Police or the Metropolitan area, that the youngsters were cautioned, given official police cautions, without having the need to go to court.

Centenier G. Cornwall: Oh, yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

There are parallel systems although --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Indeed, but what I am saying is, if it is known that the Centenier does not have the power to get you to court you are losing -- the inspector who conducts those in the English system has the same authority that I have, that at the end of the day he can charge that youngster. But if you effectively take that power away from the Centenier then you are making it a thing that no longer carries any respect or is

taken seriously by the youngsters. I am afraid that one of the things that is true, and we are trying to tackle this in other areas, is many young people do not understand the system at all. Not just the Jersey system, they do not understand the system of policing, they do not understand the system of justice. One of the things that we are very actively doing is working with our States colleagues in the schools, and Malcolm and I will both in fact be attending Le Quennevais School at some stage next week to be talking to groups of youngsters about their responsibilities in society.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I wanted to pick up on 4 points that have come up here to enforce what Geoff Cornwall has been saying. Firstly, the restorative justice. When I attended Nottingham and had an hour with the Chief Constable he said to me: "We have come up with this most fantastic thing, it is called restorative justice" and he was extremely excited about it. I said: "Well, funnily enough we have had that for many, many years" so, they thought it was the best thing since sliced bread, that they had just invented it. But, he was very enthusiastic about it. With regard to youngsters that we deal with at the Parish Hall we also have the power to give them a 3-month deferred decision. If in the case of little Johnny who may have been caught by the police with a cannabis joint on him, which we can deal with at Parish Hall , what I use is the term "the sword of Damocles". In that 3 months we have given him a deferred decision providing they do not commit any further offences, that they may seek one or 2 meetings at the drug and alcohol service and they come back and they say: "Yes, well, it was just an experiment, it was just a one-off, I am terribly sorry about that, we haven't committed any further offences" and they go on to be extremely good and useful members in society. Where if we did not have that particular system they may go through the court system and that may then affect their career for the rest of their life. The respect that we have from youngsters I think is extremely high, because they know that we have the power. Respect from some young people is difficult these days. They are brought up in a system where they think they can do what they want when they want and if they want, and that probably comes from the fact that we do not have the discipline that I was certainly brought up with when I went to De La Salle and the leather strap was used to maintain discipline. I do not think it did any of us any harm. But, when the youngsters then know that they have to come before a Centenier at a Parish Hall Inquiry that is when they start to realise that they have done something wrong. Before I became a Centenier in St. Peter we had a lot of youth problems. I am very proud of the fact now that in St. Peter it is very rare that we ever go to the Youth Court, and if we do go to the Youth Court it is normally from people committing an offence in the parish that are not resident, where it used to be quite a few residents of St. Peter 's youngsters that were committing offences. The 3-month deferred decision does work well. If we took away the power of the Centenier of being in court, being involved in the criminal justice system in the way that we are at the moment, we would lose all that respect. We would be glorified car park attendants. Would there be any necessity to hold public elections for Centeniers? I think that the whole system would crumble.

We were talking about the role of the Centenier being independent when you come to charge. What about when an Honorary Police officer makes an arrest him or herself and has then asked for the matter to be charged. Which independent police force then makes the decision to charge?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It is not an independent police force but a Centenier other than that officer will be making the decision to charge.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So, if I was to play devil's advocate a PC (police constable) in Rouge Bouillon arrests someone and if he is to be charged you could get another PC or sergeant from Rouge Bouillon to charge him, same analogy.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I suppose that is true but, as we know, the States Police are very much less independent as individuals perhaps than the Centeniers. We were talking before about the fact that certain things are not cast in stone in law, and I think the discretion that the Centenier retains, subject to the Attorney General overruling them, I think that is very important. I do think there is a distinction to be made between that and the fact that yes, it will be a different inspector who deals with the matter rather than one of the PCs. I think there is a distinction because, as is right and proper, that is a much more disciplined organisation. I am not saying that the Honorary Police should be undisciplined but we are still independent souls. I still have a mind that is my own when I approach things.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Can I just add something to that? With regard to when an Honorary Police officer arrests somebody on the street and how independent it is, that is what you are getting when another honorary officer comes along to charge. Having been involved recently in quite a few arrests of people who are DIC, what happens is that I will maybe have arrested somebody who has proved positive on the roadside to the screening device, they will be arrested and taken down to police headquarters, they will then be put on the line intoxiliser and we will say that that is a positive result. The case file is then handed over to what is called an OIC (officer in charge) who will then complete all of the necessarily paperwork. The honorary officer, myself, will then produce a statement and that then is reviewed by the custody sergeant, is there sufficient evidence? Once they feel that there is sufficient evidence then they will ask for another Centenier to come along and review that, which would then be done, in my opinion, independently, because I would only be the arresting officer. The rest of the interview, it may be a question and answer interview, or Q&A, would be done by a States of Jersey police officer. So, it is a joint partnership when we are involved in an arrest.

I do not know if we need to go too far down that line. I was just trying to point out the fact that when we talk about independence. I think we can move on maybe. I am looking at really when it was considered about it might affect the role of the traditional officer if that is removed. Were any of your colleagues asked?

Deputy J. Martin:

I want to just expand on what you have just said, and it comes back to, as you say, the evidence. I know you have just gone all the way through, it goes to the police and then the Centenier is called in and they will examine the evidence. That again is my problem. He may be independent but if he is not trained how does he know there is insufficient evidence, or the evidence is being gathered correctly and all that? Because that is where the Crown Prosecution Service comes in and these are highly trained legal people in the UK. I am not saying that is better, and I read that the legal adviser is happy to give advice day or night, but how much can you go through of a complicated case? Would you say that you probably lean more to charge on a quite severe case because they do not have the expertise to say: "No, this evidence has not been gathered correctly"?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Well, there are 2 types of cases. What I was just explaining there with regards to somebody who is DIC, the evidence is pretty obvious that the line intoxiliser may have read 95 and the legal limit is 35. It is black and white. There is the evidence, thank you very much. They have normally been interviewed and they have normally said: "Yes, I was driving the vehicle, you know that, you stopped me and I was driving." The evidence is there for anybody to see. Where it is a complicated case the legal advisers may have been involved prior to the Centenier being involved because the PC, the sergeant, the inspector or the chief inspector may have taken advice from the legal advisers with regard to the case. If we are not happy with anything that we have seen we will pick up the phone and the first thing I normally say to either Laurence or Robin, even if it is 1.00 a.m.:"I am sorry to disturb you" and I always get: "You know that you're not disturbing me. That's what we are here for." Then I will read through some evidence and perhaps Laurence or Robin will say: "What do they say in Q&A, or question and answer, did they make any admissions?" and depending on what the answer to that is the answer may come back from the legal adviser saying: "Not ready to charge. Tell them to go out and do some more work." It may be: "Yes, I'm happy with regard to that." There may be a review period of time that they have been in custody. There are so many possible variations.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

There are pressures, but I have to say, Deputy Martin, that I think it is something that comes with experience, and it comes with experience whoever is making that decision.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

With regard to the UK system, and I was in the Bridewell custody suite as you have seen, what happens

there is the PC has arrested somebody. It might be quite complicated. He then has to sit in a queue waiting to speak to the Crown Prosecution lawyer of the day, and if that happens to be at 12.30 p.m. he may have to sit there until 3.00 p.m. before he has got some advice from the Crown Prosecution Service, because they will go to lunch and then they will come back from lunch and they will do a little bit of paperwork and then they might see the PC that is waiting outside, who has also been joined by another 5 or 6 PCs waiting. Instead of those PCs being out on the street catching the criminals they are having to wait for advice. So, the system is completely different. If that is after 5.00 p.m. the paperwork then gets faxed to an 0845 number and it could be anywhere in the UK where an advocate or a CPS lawyer will then review it and then fax it back and then may have to wait hours and hours and hours. Where at least with this particular system it is relatively instantaneous that if the Centenier is not happy he is on the phone and maybe, I might be on the phone first, if it was me, to Danny saying: "Danny, what do you think of this? I am not happy" and Danny may say: "Yes, I agree with that. Talk to Laurence or Robin now" and I will then dial Laurence or Robin. If it is a very, very serious case then it will be straight through to Laurence or Robin for advice and they may then wish to speak to either the senior officer, whether it is from Customs or whether it is from the States of Jersey Police and say: "Sorry, the Centenier is not ready to charge yet." Does that --

Deputy J. Martin:

No, it is just you say either or, there must be a rota because you cannot be on for 24/365. You are on 365 days a year on call?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Like the Centenier is, my phone is on permanently.  It never gets switched off.

Deputy J. Martin:

I thought there was a 7-day period.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

There is, but as Chef de Police I am always available for my duty Centenier, and if there is something complicated, for instance - and God forbid that it ever happens - something happened at the airport that pager would go and I would be responding to it and our phone numbers are printed in the front of the telephone directory.

Deputy J. Martin: Yes, I know that.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Can I just ask, it is difficult to compare Nottingham with Jersey, difficult to compare Nottingham with anywhere else because each particular area has its own particular difficulties, but possibly we are very fortunate in Jersey that we do not get 6 or 7 people all arrested at the same time all coming into the police station at the same time without having a backup.  Are you saying we do?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

You need to see back of house on a Friday evening from 8.00 p.m. or 9.00 p.m.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I think all police stations, all areas, there will be times when they will be busy, but generally speaking there is a trickle of prisoners coming through Rouge Bouillon during the course of the day and you would not have a great big queue. But, how do you overcome a problem when there are 5 or 6 prisoners all waiting to deal with? Do you have to wait for one of the legal advisers then?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

They may not all require that assistance straight away. I could go there and find there is a St. Helier Centenier dealing with matters and I will deal with matters and Malcolm may come in. It is very unlikely that we should all be requiring the services of Robin and Laurence simultaneously.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Well, I was just saying that because it is probably unlikely also in Newcastle or Nottingham or anywhere else. It may be the occasional --

Centenier M. L'Amy:

But, they cannot charge. They cannot do anything until they have had advice from a Crown Prosecution lawyer.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Are there occasions when Rouge Bouillon are waiting for Centeniers to turn up at court?

Centenier M. L'Amy: To turn up in court?

The Deputy of St. Martin :

No, I am sorry, to turn up at Rouge Bouillon.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I have no doubt there are occasions because no system is perfect, but I think it is very rare. What normally happens is that if it is a particular Centenier's duty week he can be called in at any time and does go in at any time. But normally what happens is that the interview process will be finished, provided it is not a case that is likely to require the person to be retained in custody. He will usually be asked to go away and come back at an appointed time, so the Centenier knows that he is going to go in at 6.00 p.m. or whenever it may be. Otherwise yes, we respond as quickly as we can to any call when we are on duty. I will not say there have not been occasions when Centeniers have failed to turn up on time, of course that has happened, but generally speaking, certainly when I am on duty, if I get a call to go in that will become the priority and I will be there within 20 minutes usually.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Are you able to speak for the 53 others?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I cannot speak for however many there are, but my impression is that virtually all of them react in the way I do.  I am aware of one or 2 people who would be loose cannons in any situation.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

You are aware that we have spoken this week to Mr. Le Marquand and we have still to hear from Mr. Christmas and you are probably aware that his thoughts on the Centenier presenting the case in the Magistrate's Court are different from those of Mr. Le Marquand, in as much as our understanding is that Mr. Le Marquand supports the retention of the Centenier and perhaps Mr. Christmas is more critical. Who monitors standards of presentation in court?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think we are all monitoring it and we all share, and that is one of the reasons for the regular meetings that we have, they are very open and forthright meetings. We are critical of one another and each other right across the boundaries. The Centeniers are frequently critical of the advocates who at one stage, they are better now than they used to be but they did have a habit of wandering in about 9.55 a.m., going off into the cells to interview clients until 10.30 a.m. The court had been sitting for half an hour by that stage, so there are criticisms made so I think that is probably the forum where it is monitored. Of course it is also monitored by the mere fact that there are usually several Centeniers in court, and if one Centenier is seen to be not coming quite up to scratch that will be noted and the chances are that there will be a Chef to Chef conversation about the matter and the matter will be, as far as possible, dealt with on a parish level. But, as Malcolm has already said, we are not in a position to issue edicts. We can only say to a parish: "Look, we think that Joe Bloggs, Mrs. Bloggs, did not do very well in court this morning. What can we do to help?" I think it was Robin mentioned a particular individual to us at lunchtime, before we came in here we were having a cup of coffee and that has been noted and words will be said.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

So, there is some form of monitoring.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

There is monitoring. It is constant monitoring by all the rest of the people in court, and the Greffiers are very forthright sometimes in their views.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I am conscious of the time, we have quite a number of questions to ask, but just to go back to something you said earlier, the traditional role, back to Rutherford. Were any Honorary Police consulted at any stage or asked their views on the recommendations made by Rutherford? Rutherford said it would affect the traditional role. Were you ever consulted at all as a body or as individuals?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think the answer is yes, but I think it was before my time as a senior officer.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

The report came out in October 2002. I was wondering whether this might be a good time to have a little break. If we just give ourselves maybe 10 minutes.

ADJOURNMENT

Centenier G. Cornwall:

You asked me a question just before we went off air. The answer is that while it was only 2002 this was published it was really Ted Gallichan, who was my predecessor as President of the Association, who was called on to give evidence principally. Although I see that there were 2 other Centeniers, Centenier Letto and Centenier Andrews who also were heard, and the late Janet Gatt who although she was Director of Victim Support at that stage had for several years been a Centenier in St. Peter .

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I was asking really the general question, were the Honorary Police consulted?

Centenier G. Cornwall: Collectively no, I think the answer is.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

May I interrupt there, because I rather thought the question you were asking, Deputy Hill, was whether Centeniers had been consulted by Home Affairs before they made their decision.

The Deputy of St. Martin : As opposed to Rutherford. Centenier G. Cornwall: Oh, I see.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Professor Rutherford's recommendation to remove Centeniers from presenting cases in court.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I honestly do not know the answer to that question. I suspect the answer was no, but I do not know that as a fact. If I may, I think I am fairly certain what the answer would have been.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

We will be asking the M i n is ter.

The Deputy of St. Martin : Okay, if you would like to --

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

I would like to refer to Centenier L'Amy's report and on the first page, page 3, Centenier, you state that, and I quote: "If the Centeniers are to maintain their role as junior prosecutors for many years to come it is the opinion of a few like-minded colleagues that we need to change." You then go on to say: "My personal thoughts are that we need to have a team of 12 to 14 well-trained Centeniers who are able to undertake court work for the Island instead of having potentially 56 as at present." You may be interested to know that when Mr. Le Marquand came to speak to us on Tuesday he gave us a brief report that he had prepared in which he stated, and I quote: "I favour the greater use of specialist presenting Centeniers." Which seems to tie in with your thoughts, although you have said that they are personal, apart from a few like-minded Centeniers. Centenier, would you tell us, please, what consideration is being given to forming a pool of Centeniers to present cases in court, if consideration is being formally given?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I do not think consideration has been formally given to this. The report was presented to the Comité des Chefs. There are always diverse views and that is why the legal adviser is going over to the UK to see how the DCW course, which is a week long, runs and Danny and I are hoping to go over towards the end of this year also to see how the DCW course is run so that we can try and take some of that into producing a specific-based course in Jersey for the Centeniers. Like everything there is always opposition, there is always those people that are for moving forward, but as I said in there it is my personal opinion and a couple of other Centeniers that have discussed this. It may be more logical to have a team of dedicated Centeniers who are in court on quite a regular basis. This would also assist with Centeniers in parishes that are relatively quiet in what happens. St. Peter 's has been, and I did not have the figures for last year, but we were the third largest user of the court when I first became a Centenier, from what I was told, and that is because of the drug cases that came in through the airport. So, therefore I have seen quite a lot of what happens through the court system. You may get the Parish of Trinity , and I am just thinking out aloud here, that may take the odd speeder, perhaps a couple of offences that were caused during the Jersey Live, you know, the very odd case that Trinity would present and may not go into court for 4 or 5 months. If you have a team of Centeniers that are there regularly then they are used to the court system and perhaps we can provide a better service than we are doing at the moment. We all constantly need to review and to look at ourselves to be able to develop. The States has looked at itself and has decided to go, after much painstaking moves, to ministerial government and then splitting off into the scrutiny. It was some very brave people that came out with those particular ideas quite a few years ago when Clothier had produced a report and it has taken, I think it is about 10 years perhaps, Deputy , for the development of ministerial government. It may take some time for the development of this particular idea and having things in place. But that is just a vision that I had when I was writing that report.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Now that I have told you that Mr. Le Marquand appears to support that view do you think you will try and put some pressure on those who have a say in this?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

The first person that I would need to talk to, once it had been discussed in probably the Centeniers' Co- ordinating Group, would be the Attorney General. He is after all - for want of a better word - our boss, we are responsible to him for the prosecutions that we bring, so it would be something that we would need to discuss with the Attorney General at one of our meetings, how does he feel with regard to this matter? He may turn round and say: "Centenier, great idea, not interested. If the Centeniers are to be maintained in the court system, all 56 have to be trained, all 56 will appear in court." Until I have had that discussion with the Attorney General and if he agreed to move forward with regard to that then yes, we can look at it.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

To be fair it is a vision, it is a vision that is shared by a number of us, I think. It is not universally shared. I have just had a submission from one of my fellow Centeniers, this is from Centenier Foley of St. Saviour , he says: "A major part of a Centenier's duty is to undertake court work. There should be no wish to' about it. If he is not prepared to do it then he should not be elected to the position." Now, okay that is a personal view as well, but that is a view that is held by a number of Centeniers and a number of other people involved in the honorary service. But I think I would agree with Malcolm and with Ian Le Marquand that this is probably the way ahead. There is a downside to that and that is that most Centeniers are still trying to earn a living as well as be Centeniers. Some of us are lucky enough to be either working part time or to be self-employed or to be retired, but most Centeniers are still trying to earn a living and for them to take on an even greater load than they already do is going to be extremely difficult for some people. In my parish in St. Brelade at the moment I have one part-timer in working terms, myself, I have one retired and I have 2 chaps who are working full-time. The result of this is that 2 of us do virtually all the court work, which is not that the other 2 are not perfectly willing to do it and in fact perfectly capable of doing it, one of them in fact works in Hill Street in that capacity. But there is a downside to this in that, to some extent, you would still be left with who is able to devote the additional time to this that would be inevitably required if you were limiting it to 12 Centeniers. There would also be the question of would that be automatically 12? We have said 12, but are we saying that this would be one Centenier per parish? In which case that certainly would not work because the vast majority of the work is coming from one parish and I think it would be important, because of the very fact that it would be very easy for parishes to get completely out of touch, to have parishes that had no ability to prosecute.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

You referred earlier to the Helen Miles and Peter Raynor report from September 2005 in which they cited that recruitment and retention of officers is one of the single most important challenges facing the honorary system by those who operate within it. How would you expect the recruitment and retention to be affected by this possible system of specialist presenting Centeniers?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think there would be upsides because there are people who will make extremely good Centeniers who either do not have the time or the inclination to do court work; we have them now. I have cited 2 examples, it is not lack of inclination in that case, but I know of Centeniers in certain parishes who say quite openly: "I don't like the court work, I am not good at court work, I much prefer somebody else to do it." So, there is an upside to that. I think the point I was making earlier is it is vital that Centeniers collectively retain this because I think we would lose an awful lot from the whole system. But, yes I think there may very well be mileage in having some specialist Centeniers whether they do the job exclusively or whether there might be, we have not thought this one through quite obviously from what I am saying, some mileage in having a system whereby you have a team of specialists who would deal with anything beyond the simple speeder which would allow all Centeniers from time to time still to appear in court but only to deal with things that they felt capable of doing.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

One final question, the legal advisers sit in court and as we know they present some cases. Why should they not present all cases?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

They only present a proportion of the cases. What usually happens is that the Centenier will call the case in the first instance. He may or may not have already spoken to the legal adviser about the case. The cases that are likely to be complicated are where one is likely to get a not guilty plea to something as simple, in fact, as a DIC. But if you are getting a not guilty plea those almost identify themselves at a very early stage as cases that will end up with the legal advisers. If, on the other hand, the legal advisers were having to do all the routine work as well as the more specialist work you would inevitably have to increase the number of legal advisers.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian : At a cost.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

At a considerable cost and I do not know how many secretaries the present legal advisers have but I guess there is probably the equivalent of 2 secretaries for every legal adviser or something like that. You have considerable cost.  It is not just the bodies who appear in court.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Before we go down that line could I just come in on a couple of points before we move on to the cost, because I would like to cover that. This report has been endorsed by your Committee of Chefs so when they endorse it have they endorsed some of the suggestions? Because a point I will come on to later is there are no recommendations in here, but by endorsing it are they endorsing it that they are looking for 12 or 15 because I do not follow --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

No, I think they have acknowledged that this was a useful submission but it would not be true to say that every single Chef would endorse it through and through, but it is a useful working tool to be --

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I am just asking why has it been endorsed?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

To be honest, I think that the basic on that one is the timetable was so tight that we would not have had time,  in all  honesty,  to have  worked through  this either  individually  or  collectively  to meet your timetable and to come up with anything half as useful as the document we were working with.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I think from memory yes, it was endorsed by a majority vote so a vote would have been taken at the Comité des Chefs police meeting on 17th July prior to your attendance.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

How long would you have sent deliberating?  Because we got there I think about 7.00 p.m.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

They had had draft copies in advance and that was being emailed from Spain. The final draft was completed with any grammatical error that was in there, and hopefully they were all clear, and any typing error I may have made. So, it would have been done by a majority.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It was certainly a majority.  It was not a unanimous decision.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

The other thing is just to pick up on the 56 or the 12 or the 15. One of the downsides would be, of course, if these officers were not going to court those who did not go to court may well feel they are relegated to car park attendants.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It could be a downside but I think there have always been, one is constantly on the lookout - I am doing it very firmly at the moment as I am intending to retire in about a year's time - for potential successors. At the moment I have to limit the people I am looking at to people who I know would be able to afford the time, which out of a team of 20-something I have probably only got 2 people who could conceivable come up as Centeniers in due course, whereas if they were not going to be expected to do court work I could probably up that to half a dozen straight away who are people who are perfectly capable of taking responsibility within the parish, perfectly capable of conducting a Parish Hall Inquiry but who simply physically are not going to be able to go to court.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Can I just come back on a couple of points you asked with regard to the legal advisers, why do they not present all cases? I think the figures are in here somewhere, about 3,100 cases presented by Centeniers on an annual basis and the legal advisers deal with 225, and those are the really complicated cases where there are points of law that need to be argued. At times we are having to ask the Magistrate for initially a 4-week adjournment and then a further 2 weeks if the matter is going to the Royal Court for them to prepare all the necessary paperwork, because they are stretched, their department is extremely stretched from time to time. So, you would have to increase --

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Because this has been talked about for some time about the role of Centeniers, one goes back to Clothier and the introduction of the advisers, which was seen then to be the death knell of the Centeniers and possibly, would you say now, has strengthened the role of the Centeniers by having legal advisers to assist?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think we are enormously privileged to have the support we are getting, yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

But there was this strong resistance initially.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I have never worked without having legal advisers there.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

If I could just move on quickly then to talk about if indeed they were replaced, about the cost. You mentioned £5 million to £7 million it would cost the States. How have you worked out those figures?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Well, you would first need a Director of Prosecution. That was the recommendation from Professor Rutherford, was it not? What sort of figure are you going to have to pay somebody from the legal profession to leave their legal practice and become a director of the Crown Prosecution Service? Especially with some of the wages that I believe some of the advocates are commanding if they are in a senior practice. I cannot remember exactly how I came to that figure but if it takes 4 legal advisers to deal with 225 cases I reckoned that it was going to take a further 20 legal advisers to get through 3,100 cases on an annual basis.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Would you really need legal advisers or dedicated case workers? If so, how many dedicated case workers? The fact is, you have stated a figure. It would be nice to get some evidence bearing in mind we are trying to produce a report based on evidence and for you to give us the evidence to show how you came to that figure.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

The truth is that while I am not suggesting Malcolm plucked it out of a hat, it was a figure that was certainly done on the back of an envelope without a great deal of -- it was an intelligent guess rather than a calculation.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

You would concede it could be £2 million, it could be £10 million.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It could be. I do not think you can immediately divide the number of cases by the number of bodies because clearly a qualified legal adviser would be rattling through the simpler cases in the way that

Centeniers do without a great deal of time or difficulty involved.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

When we went to Southampton we saw a dedicated case worker there with quite a pile of cases which she handled.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Well, that is what happens on a daily basis with the St. Helier Centeniers who will walk in and perhaps have 20 to 30 cases to deal with on a morning.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Even a dedicated case worker costs money.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I know, I just wanted to know how you got your figures, that was the question.

Centenier G. Cornwall: We have not calculated.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

On page 5, paragraph 4, reference is made that if Centeniers do not have the confidence of the parish and the general public the system must be changed. Do you know how you are going to measure this confidence, how much consultation you are going to have with the public? How much are the public behind the system of the honorary service? Because you made a statement here, we are trying to find out what justification you had for making that statement.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

This was a comment that was made by the Chief Constable of Nottingham who was saying: "Why do you not find out what your customers want? Your customer base being the people of the Island of Jersey. You may be doing all this work trying to protect and promote the Honorary Police system and the Centeniering system that has been in place for many hundreds of years but if the public do not want that service then you may be banging your head against a brick wall." That was the sort of general --

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Do you propose going and looking beyond that?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Well, it would be very interesting. The people that I have spoken to with regard to this, and I get stopped in the street and I was stopped the other day by somebody I have known for years who said: "I am really impressed with what you have been doing. I have been reading everything in the Evening Post that you have been doing, you went to Nottingham, I think it is very good. You have raised the profile of the Honorary Police, I think it is very good." I have had other comments from members of the public that I know who have said it would be a crying shame for this Island to lose the Centeniering system and the Honorary Police, but that may not be the view of the whole of the public. We do not often hear on the phone-in on Radio Jersey any negative comments on a daily basis about Centeniering or the Honorary Police. The report that was done in the Evening Post following me sending a copy of this electronically to Orlando Crowcroft , there was only one letter in the Evening Post having a go at me saying, I think the comment was made, I was stroking my own ego. But there was only one letter. There was not a pile of letters saying: "Yes, the quicker that we get rid of the Centeniers in the court system, the better."

Centenier G. Cornwall:

As you may remember, I responded to that letter, in my own name, but on behalf of the Centeniers and I have been very surprised and gratified with the number of people who have come to me, who I did not really know whether they had a view particularly, and have said: "Good stuff. Keep at it. Do not let the buggers get them."

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Possibly we could look at the role now of the presenter on number 24 of our statement and it is the question: "Are Honorary Police officers presenters or prosecutors?" How do you see the role of the Honorary Police in the setting of the court? Are you a presenter or a prosecutor?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think we are prosecutors because we have to make the decision to prosecute, subject to guidelines and subject to consultation, but we are not simply presenters. It is our decision, in the first instance, as to whether the prosecution will be brought and we are doing a great deal of work in advance. It is very, very rare for a Centenier, unless circumstances force it upon him or her and he is picking a file for someone else blind, but generally speaking Centeniers will have spent quite a long time on the paperwork going through the police report. If it is in any way complicated I hate taking a police report cold in because it is expressed in language that I would not use. It expresses ideas in ways that I would not do. So, what I personally tend to do is to take the police report and rewrite it. It depends on how long the report is but there is a considerable time element involved there and the presentation that is made in court is then my presentation of facts that I know and understand. It is not simply that I am reading out somebody else's report so I think, in that case, I am a prosecutor. I am not a presenter.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

When we refer to the working party, they were quite clear that really the role of Centenier should be that of a presenter and not as prosecutor but the --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think the area that we have always had to be careful about, and we are very, very, very much aware of it, is the more important distinction is that the Parish Hall Inquiry should not be seen as a court so the Centenier is not a judge in that sense. The Parish Hall Inquiry is merely part of the final part, usually, of the investigation. It is not part of the judicial process, in that sense, so we are not sitting in judgment. Any decision that the Centenier makes has to be made with the consent of the person reported unless it is decided, obviously, to charge them. I am not saying that people will universally consent to be charged but they will understand and it will be made quite clear that this is the only resort that the Centenier is left with in the circumstances. But we are judges in that sense.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I think we will settle with that, will we?

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian : Yes, we will settle at that.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Yes, because we were under the impression, having read what we have read through of the documentation presented by working parties, it was quite clear that it was never intended that Centeniers should continue to be prosecutors, but presenters. But as indeed we had with Mr. Le Marquand on Tuesday, he was adamant that you were prosecutors and not presenters.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I think the term that had been used in the past had been the term "junior prosecutor" and I think that that came from the 1863 document but I am drawing that from some distant memory. It was always viewed that the Centenier would be a junior prosecutor. Prior to the legal advisers being in the court system, if there was a not guilty plea, the Magistrate then has the role of juge d'instruction where he is doing the examination as well and the Centenier only calls the witnesses and will say: "Yes, I call Joe Bloggs, call Fred Smith" and then it is the judge that does the cross-examination.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Just on the point of witnesses, whose responsibility is it for ensuring that witnesses are to the court?

Centenier M. L'Amy: The Centeniers.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It is the Centenier's responsibility and, in practice, the warning is done by a warning clerk at police

headquarters.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Okay. Have you got anything to follow up on that issue? No? Okay. Just again to pick up on your report on page 12, number 26 of our questions here, you state that people would normally be locked up in Jersey. You have made reference to a particular case. How easy is it to get bail in Jersey or is it one of those --

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Well, that is going to depend on the seriousness of the case. If somebody has constantly failed to attend court when requested to do so, has committed a series of offences and then suddenly has been caught, the Centenier is unlikely to say: "Yes, I am going to give you bail to appear in the Magistrate's Court on Monday morning" if he is charging on a Friday night. If he has escaped lawful custody, there may be an issue with regard to that on several occasions. The Centenier will say: "No, I am not granting bail." I think that, in the past, a surety was taken off people more regularly than it is now. If I have no confidence that somebody who has just come through the airport for a couple of days and although only have a personal amount of the Class B drug I may be looking to take some surety off of them, £200, £300, £400.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Would it be fair to say then it is not normal practice to oppose bail but each case will be dealt with on its merits?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Well, I think we are talking about 2 points, are we not? Malcolm, I think, is talking about the bail that may be granted after charge --

Centenier M. L'Amy: After charge.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

-- at the police station and, to some extent, you are talking about the bail that may or may not be granted by the Magistrate. Now, our only function in the bail process in the court is to oppose bail on the usual stipulated grounds. At that stage, we are not granting or refusing bail. It is the Magistrate who is granting or refusing bail.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

May I just clarify that point because it seemed to be a bit confusing from (overspeaking)

Centenier G. Cornwall:

So, the Centenier's bailing function is only, at the moment, usually as Malcolm says over a weekend or overnight at the police court. Yes, I think it is right that, in the old days, more often one was taking a financial bail and that is used to a lesser extent because I think perhaps most cases would appear to be more black and white in that the person either needs to be kept in custody until he can be put before the Magistrate, which is usually quite quickly, or one is satisfied that the person is going to answer the bail, in which case, the need to be carting around money that the Centenier then becomes responsible for --

The Deputy of St. Martin :

As a matter of interest, are monies normally put up or you promise to pay if you do not turn up?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

No, it is money put up. We have never said: "You will pay so much if you do not turn up." We need filthy lucre in our hands.

The Deputy of St. Martin : Any other questions on that line?

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian : Not on bail, no.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I was just wondering if we look at number 33, Deidre?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

If you are wanting to know what the 4 oppositions to bail are, it is on page 23.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I know. We are aware of them. Yes, it was just an observation you made. You were stressing about the case you were looking at in Nottingham and you gave the impression we would not have done that because, in your report, you did say, why should we bail him because he could go on to re-offend? I do not think it should be presumed that people are going to re-offend if they are bailed. That is the way I read the report.

Centenier M L'Amy:

Yes. That particular case, the person did go back into the community. He got back to his girlfriend and wife and he did re-offend and he did bash her up again. If I had been making that decision for that case, which I discussed later with the Crown Prosecution lawyer, I said I would not have allowed that person to have gone back into the community to have caused more damage to the beleaguered wife or girlfriend, I cannot remember, and that comes from a series of domestic violence. There was obviously case history but that is a different way to how we would deal with it in Jersey. That was to try and show the difference in how we looked at it but unfortunately I think things took a turn for the worst.

The Deputy of St. Martin : Okay.  Do we want to move on?

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

I referred earlier today to this out of date leaflet which I believe was used for recruitment purposes and mentioned that it says in this leaflet that the role of Constable was first mentioned as far back as 1462 and that the first reference to a Centenier, that has been found, was made in 1502. So, we are well aware that the honorary system has evolved since first mention was made. Of course, it must have adapted to change over the years. Centenier L'Amy, in your report, on page 23, you state that Centeniers will need to be able to meet the challenges ahead. Would you like to give us some information as to what you see the challenges being in the future?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

The challenges in the future, that is providing that they are going to stay in the court system, it has changed dramatically in the just over 3 years that I have been a Centenier in the way that we had a court that had very, very bad conditions at time. There was nowhere to go and discuss things. We would stand out in the rain talking to advocates. That is vastly improved now and we have some extremely different types of crimes even to 10 years ago. There are computer crimes, we have been discussing a particular issue with regard to mobile phones and text messaging. I will not go into the details of that but we are having to adapt to different types of crime on this Island and that is probably is where I gave that -- and the way that perhaps we present cases in court, may be that we need to constantly look at ourselves. There was a document that was produced a few years ago and you may not have a copy of it, I can get it to you electronically. It is called the "Safe Future" document and that was about the whole of the Honorary Police, not just the role of the Centenier. Of how we would move into the future, how we need to look ourselves and we cannot just stagnate. I have been working with States Jersey police to produce a manual. We are still in only very, very draft stages with regard to this. This is for the policing side of things but I am hoping that this particular document that I am working on at the moment will last to 2012. I am constantly looking to the future and saying this is how I would like to see the system in a year's time, 2 years' time. We will need to change the way that we work and that may be that we would have team prosecution that may be made up of 10, 12, 14, 20 Centeniers dedicated to presenting in court and it will have to evolve. The States may have to look at the number of Deputies that are in and say: "Well, perhaps do we need 53? Perhaps we only need 36" and the States will have to move as well.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I do not think any institution can simply stick in the past and we have all got to move and yes, there have been technological changes. There will be more. When I started every single police officer was still bashing away with one finger on a typewriter.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

There are still some States' Members doing that.  [Laughter]

Centenier G. Cornwall:

But there have been improvements. I think what we are anxious to do is to maintain the best of the past and to move forward as professionally as we can as amateurs, if that is not a complete nonsense. But we want to approach what we do as professionally as possible and we accept the need for training and probable need for specialization.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

I have a copy of a speech here made by Mr. Robin Short when he was assistant magistrate and he made it on 20th November 1984 which may be probably just before your time, Centenier Cornwall. He made it to Centeniers and his first sentence is: "I am the first to recognise, and I hope that I never forget it, that the Centeniers are all volunteers and secondly, that their work in the court is only the tip of the iceberg." Do you find that one of the main challenges? Well, the fact that they are volunteers. You are constrained because you are working with volunteers?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Constrained, I suppose, in a sense but if you did not have the volunteers the Island would be paying for the services. I mean, whether this is the Centenier or whether this is the CO, and this is really what I was trying to express earlier on. I think if you lose the top echelon effectively of the honorary system I think the lower echelon will go as well and you will find that you are having to pay special Constables to police Jersey Live and whatever it may be. At the moment, you are getting a lot of volunteers who are doing it for nothing.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

How are you managing recruitment at the moment?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think each parish deals with it, to some extent, in a different way. There is a new edition of that. (A red recruitment leaflet is displayed by Deputy Mezbourian ). The only reason that is out of date is that there is one sentence in there, I think, that somebody took exception to and the AG asked us to withdraw it but there is a new edition on its way. That is one thing. We take every possible opportunity of talking both within our own parishes and on the radio and whenever one has an opportunity to stand up in public and talk about. We say to people if you want the Honorary Police to continue, somebody has got to come and join us and please do so. So, each parish does it in its way. I still think that the best way is by personal contact, personal word of mouth, but I think most parishes have tried mail drops. Over the years, I should think on about 5 occasions, I have sent out a letter with the rates demands which has sometimes borne fruit. Sometimes rather more fruit than all other things but it has sometimes worked. Actually one of the best recruiting grounds is the Parish Hall Inquiry because it is amazing how many parents of youngsters who have come through the system have been encouraged, have seen how the system has treated their youngsters and have said: "Right, we would like to be part of this." So, we have recruited several people in that way and we recruited people on the basis of the assistance they have had from the Honorary Police going round and dealing with neighbours' disputes. One of my present Vingteniers is only a member of the Honorary Police because somebody came and sorted out a neighbour for him many, many moons ago.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Could I just follow up on question 3, which I had got from Mr. Cornwall, was the fact, I think it is fair to say, there are difficulties in recruiting for all sorts of reasons. I think we take --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

All volunteers are difficult to recruit.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Have you ever taken a general review to see what can be done overall with the Committee of Connétable s and the pressure --

Centenier G. Cornwall: Yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin : How did that pan out?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It has been visited and revisited. On one occasion, there was a serious suggestion that we should employ a professional PR (public relations) man to do it. I really am happy to say that that did not come to anything. Yes, it is something that we regularly talk to the Connétable s about. I think it is grabbing any opportunity to talk. I was telling Malcolm this morning I have been asked by Radio Jersey to allow them to do sort of a day in the life of. The fact that they are going to broadcast it in 90 seconds does not give me an awful lot of hope [Laughter] but one says yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Could I just ask if, indeed, the law was changed which removed the obligation of a parish to provide a

Centenier, do you think that would help or do you think that would hinder?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Remove the fining aspect? Yes, I think that would help. I think it would ease the pressure. It would mean that one was not under the constant pressure to replace this person with anybody or drag anybody off the street simply so we can avoid the fine.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

That appears to be the danger, not that one wants to denigrate those people who do join but we have had from a witness this morning, who is turning out to be a very good Centenier, but somebody doing an honourable job in a sense to make sure her parish does not get the fine. It seems to be wrong that that system should be in hand.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Absolutely. I know exactly who we are talking about and yes, I think she will become a good Centenier but she was rushed into it as many of her colleagues in St. Lawrence were. It may be that she will have done better in the long run to have come in as a CO and come up through the ranks, to some extent. To have had the time to do that. I was lucky in the sense that I had a couple of years as a CO before I suddenly became a Centenier. I certainly had not expected to be a Centenier within 18 months or 2 years of election but there we are.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Okay. I have just got a couple I would like to finish on and if you have got any other questions It is always difficult to try to gauge what you want to ask and you never know how the witnesses are going to answer. What you have done, your answers have been quite long and, of course, they have encompassed a number of questions we were going to ask so we have not got to ask them so it gets a bit difficult to follow. It is a bit like an advocate in court sometimes. You get the answer you are not really expecting put down another way but I am grateful for what you have obviously given. But one thing, Malcolm, in your report you had not made any recommendations. Was there any reason for so doing and do you intend to make some?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Right, well there are recommendations which were not endorsed by the Comité des Chefs and at the time the report was sent to the Comité de Connétable s the recommendations were also removed. I went to a meeting with the Comité de Connétable s where we went through them and they had made various suggestions that the recommendations should be put in 2 parts, part 1 and part 2, which then went to the Comité des Chefs and I did bring a copy. I am not sure what the final decision was with regard to where that was going to.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think it is still pending, Malcolm. I mean, I have got no problem at all with allowing you to know the recommendations that have been suggested but I cannot say, for the moment, that they are endorsed.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

It might be fairer to your committee not to --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I note in the paperwork that came around that it may be possible for us to make a written submissions after today, if it is going to be of any assistance, and I would certainly like to take this away and take it to the next Committee of Chefs meeting and then come back to you. I am afraid that will not be within 7 days.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Oh no, I think, as we said earlier on, we feel this could run on a bit longer. We know that all inquiries still (...inaudible) but if indeed you have some recommendation and they are ready possible even within a month, it might be helpful because then (overspeaking)

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I do not think they are terribly controversial but I mean one of them does come up with the possibility of a continual programme of training so that - we are saying 20 there - 20 Centeniers who will always be maintained, who will be the prosecution group, but that is controversial at the moment.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

It would be fair to say to my colleagues, am I right, that one of the recurring themes has been really the need for better training and support for that training because if you are going to do a professional job, you must be professional at doing it, even if you are not being paid.

Centenier G. Cornwall: Exactly.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I think this has been acknowledged also in your report but there again, I must say, it has been a constant theme throughout other reviews of the panel before us.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

But with having limited to no funds to be able to do these things, as you can appreciate, it does make it difficult. Just to pick up on a couple of points that you were talking about before, where the Centeniers are concerned, because we do not get paid we are very dedicated to what we do and I think all of us take the role very, very seriously. I am sure we could have the parish halls filled on election night if Centeniers were going to be paid. We do try and promote in various ways. I know I have been the butt of a lot of jokes over this possibility of a fox, but it has brought out into the front page about the other side of the work of the Honorary Police apart from the Centeniers' role in the court that he is there to go round and see the poor lady who rang me on the duty Centenier phone. I had just left court and I went and saw her and it was extremely distressing for her and her 2 children to find their rabbit who had been devastated by whether it was a fox or a dog or a ferret, and to be able to there to comfort them and give them some support, this is the other side of the centeniering role, to be there. We have to be legally there with regard to sudden deaths and before the body can be removed, we release that. That is very, very onerous because we are, no doubt, going to know the people who live in the parish that you have gone around and the poor husband may have passed away with a stroke or something difficult and you have known that family perhaps for 10, 12 years and you are there in a counselling role. Perhaps the family are not there and you are the first person that they can have contact with. So, the role of the Centenier is so vast; it is very, very difficult. I am not sure whether what Mr. Short was trying to get out when he said about the tip of the iceberg being in the court system. Yeah, that is the public bit that everybody sees but you do not see all the other work that we do behind the scenes.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

I think that was the point he was trying to make, quite clearly that there is so much work involved in the role of the Centenier. Not only is there so much work involved but he goes on to stress the importance of the role of the Centenier. I have one more question because I am conscious of the time. Centenier L'Amy, one of the first comments you made this afternoon, and I am sure you feel as I do that it has been a long afternoon --

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Yes, I have just looked at the time.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

One of the first comments you made was that you walked off the streets, would you like to give us a bit more information on that, about your decision to become a Centenier and when you say you walked off the street, do you mean that you became a Centenier because there was pressure in St. Peter to find a Centenier?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

The elections had taken place for the Centeniers in the March and the Centenier that I replaced did 3 months and that was it. Centeniers are normally elected in pairs and the other Centenier at the time, ex Centenier now, Mark Tucker, I bumped into him and I said: "Why did you become an Centenier?" because I had signed his nomination paper and he said: "Every 7 years I like to have a challenge and I felt that this was a new challenge" and I thought: "Yes, I need a new challenge." There was another reason that I wanted to take on that particular role. I think it was about a year beforehand I had done a concert down in the South of France and on driving back, a vehicle overtook us on the road to Rennes and the car overturned at 100 miles an hour. We were in the centre lane and not one piece of the debris or the car hit us and I do not know why. I do not know why I was not killed that day and I decided that I had been given a second life and I needed to do something to help other people. With that, and what Mark Tucker had said to me, I felt that the role of the Centenier fitted that criteria. It has been extremely challenging. I do not regret a minute of what I have done. I hope that I have helped people. I know I saved somebody's life one night and if I had to give up tomorrow for whatever reasons, for health, I feel that I have made a contribution towards the continuation of centeniering in the future.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

You went in straight as Centenier?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Straight in as a Centenier. I had done my research. I knew what was involved. I knew that when I had a retail business in Jersey that there was no way that I could be a Centenier. I could not dedicate the time to being a Centenier with the court work and everything else that went along with that. I am in a fortunate position that neither my wife or I, who is also a Centenier, do not have children, have not been blessed with children and, therefore, we do have the time to dedicate to other people. The terminology "I walked off the street" I had no policing background, nothing at all. I knew what was the role of Centeniers because I knew quite a few ex Centeniers. I knew the involvement with the parish system because I had been involved as a roads inspector since 1997 so I had a good understanding of what was going on and I felt that that was the right thing to do.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Thank you.  That was what I was trying to establish that you had gone straight into the role of Centenier.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Yes, I felt that I had taken to it quite quickly and it was logical.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I just want to put a question to each of you individually. It has been described that honorary officers know all their parishioners and they know their parish very well. Would you subscribe to that theory?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think it is an ideal. I think it is probably not realistic. Certainly in St. Helier it is no longer realistic. It is not realistic in the bigger urban parishes. That having been said it is amazing how many of the population do know who we are. It is rather like being a school teacher or a youth club leader. You are known by everybody. You do not know everybody but it is an amazing number of people who will, in a crisis situation or whatever, will ring the Centenier rather than the police even if they have never had any contact with you before.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

If the age group of that person is sort of 50, 60 they will always refer to the police as the paid police or the town police because up until 1974 they had absolutely no jurisdiction at all in any parish unless the Constable said yes, you can come in. I totally endorse what Geoff has said there. Yes, I do not know every parishioner. I know an awful lot more now than I did 3 years ago and yes, I do get a phone call saying: "Oh, Malcolm, I do not know if you remember me but I have got this problem. Can I talk to you about it?" So, our public image is there within the parish assemblies and the people do know and I was stopped the other day by 2 parishioners who said: "We very much appreciate the time that you and your wife dedicate to this parish with no thanks at all."

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Can I just have one last question? It is about the recommendations on this report. I fully understand you cannot give them to us. I understand why. When you say endorsed by the Centeniers' Training Group, the Chefs, does it have to be every single person endorsing? If it goes right to the top where we came in, like you said: "Well, the Attorney General may not like the idea of the pool of Centeniers", it goes. Then we also recognise that you have to conform and change and come into the 21st century, so if you cannot get agreement and you are split completely down the middle on the most important recommendations, and I would say good training --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

The Committee of Chefs will have to make a decision. It may be a decision on majority. It will be the Committee of Chefs that makes that decision after consultation, but it will be the Committee of Chefs that make that because we are the only executive body within the system. As I say, I suspect it will be majority report. You may even get a dissenting report. I mean, there is one particular person who I am quite surprised has not approached you to give evidence on his own account but he has not so, there we are.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Right.  So, from the top who do you think would be fighting for these changes?

Centenier G. Cornwall: Fighting for or against?

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian : Well, if things --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I mean, within this room this afternoon we have got a degree of understanding with each other.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

I will properly phrase the question. If the recommendations are the majority recommendations and you will not get it endorsed by all, but obviously, as we have talked about, funding would be needed, who would be fighting in your corner for the funding? It goes right to the top again.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It will have to be the Connétable s.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

So, it is still the Connétable s. It is not the AG or it could be? I have asked this before but it is just to be completely clear.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

The AG has not got a purse has he, really, in that sense? I mean, he has enough trouble fighting in his corner for his own department, as I understand it.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

I just get the problem with the 12 different parishes here.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

The bottom line is that the States are going to have to make a decision and it may very well be that the States, whether they do it through the Connétable s or however they do it, that the funding is going to have to be centrally organised. Whether that is centrally organised through the Connétable s or whether it is centrally organised through the Treasury, as I say, it does not matter to us very much as long as the money comes.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Look at how much the Honorary Police in total has saved this Island, one with the Jersey Live, Battle of Flowers, Battle of Britain and all the officers that have given their time and Vigntenier Mitch Couriard produces wonderful documentation of how many man hours we do for closing road junctions, for being there, how many extra police officers would be needed to do some of the work that we do for nothing. So, it is always said at our parish rates assembly by the auditor, David Picot, that you are getting marvellous value for money when the Honorary Police for the Parish of St. Peter costs £30,000 a year. That is less than one States of Jersey police officer and you are getting 16 people, and when that was presented there was 16 officers in St. Peter , very dedicated, who are providing you with a service and all that for £30,000. We obviously do it because we are very dedicated. We do not do it for the £500 a year

expenses we get to try and pay our telephone bill.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

I am smiling to myself because David Picot stands up at St. Lawrence parish assembly and says something very similar.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

He says that at St. Martin as well.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Yes, yes, I have heard him at St. Brelade as well.  [Laughter]

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

This is my final question. We have just been discussing funding and what I would like to know is if the Comité des Chefs who, as you say, is formally constituted --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It is the only executive body.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

It is the only executive body. If that was to make a decision or a recommendation does the Attorney General as titular head have power of veto?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Yes, I think he has got to have at the moment.  He will only veto things, I think, if we are completely out of line with something legal.

The Deputy of St. Martin : The ultra vires.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

The ultra vires, the law, yes. I mean, an example is that we have taken to issuing what we call directives which are heavily underlined suggestions legally but they go out headed "Chef's Directives". These are things that we think it is important that there should be consistency across the parishes. For some reason, and we did not set out to do it, a number of these went out without having passed across the Attorney General's desk and he very reasonably pointed out that it would not have been a bad idea if he had a look at them before they went out.  [Laughter]. Ditto that red document although it was not the AG that picked up that, it was a private citizen. So, I mean, yes, I am perfectly certain the AG would love us to have the money for training. I just do not quite see how he is going to get it for us.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian : Thank you.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Perhaps there are some recommendations to come from other quarters.

Centenier G. Cornwall: Absolutely.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

If you have no other questions to my right, can I just ask --

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian : I may have another question.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Okay, I was going to ask - we have asked you lots of questions - are there any questions that you feel that you should have been asked and were not asked and you would like us to ask you them or alternatively, are there any things you would like to ask of us before you go?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I think the only thing I would say is that I believe that there is a belief among some of our colleagues that there is a hidden agenda to get rid of us and I think I have been relieved this afternoon by the attitude of the group of you that I do not go out the doors with that feeling. I go out of the doors believing that we are all trying to work to find a sensible way ahead for which I am extremely grateful. Malcolm has just scribbled Channel 103 on the pad and I know exactly why. Channel 103 picked up 2 out I believe 8 points at Ian Le Marquand made yesterday and reported the 2 that were mildly critical of us. We fully accept the need for the criticism and I believe those were largely to do with training. We will know more tonight because Ian is going to address the Centeniers this evening, but this is a problem that we face constantly and 103 are probably going to be knocking on our doors.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

They have knocked.  They have already knocked on my cell phone.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Would you prefer us to go to them and tell them our impression or would you prefer us to say go to hell?

The Deputy of St. Martin :

As far as we are concerned, what you do is your own business. Likewise if we are interviewed, I was asked and I made a comment and I do not know if you heard what I had to say. Fortunately what I did have to say was recorded in its entirety because I am afraid Mr. Le Marquand was not, because he was very complementary and I thought he was very fair and what he did talk about were 2 extremes. Unfortunately the media picked up the extreme that he did not particularly want to put across. The piece, I am pleased to say, that came out of my interview was I said that we attended the Magistrate's Court and, certainly from our experience, and I do not want to make Centenier Scaife blush but we said that we thought what we seen from St. Helier Centeniers was very professional. I am pleased to say that was recorded and did get played back but we are conscious of the media. So, certainly it is down to you what you say. What we would like to say is we try to be fair. Again, we have looked at this simply because it is an area, I think, which needs to be challenged and from my part, not that I made the ultimate decision because we made the decision as a panel, but really I just felt that for Home Affairs to leave(?) something saying that they were not going to go along with Rutherford simply because it could not be justified on costs grounds and result in the losing the traditional role of presenting cases to a magistrate. But to do nothing as a result of that is not the answer. I think the greatest danger to the Honorary Police, like to any organisation, sometimes to do nothing is probably the biggest evil and we would hope as a result of our consultation and our review that some good will come out of it. I think it is very important that those fine traditions in Jersey are maintained.

Centenier G. Cornwall: Thank you.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I thought it was at an early discussion with the Attorney General that the Rutherford recommendation was not thought necessary or viable and Professor Rutherford did not understand the Jersey system. That was my actual understanding from the document of July 2006.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Yes, that is the one you are referring to at page 8.

Centenier M. L'Amy: Page 69.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

It is the same document, different page. Deidre, did you have another question before --

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Yes. Following on to my question earlier about the Attorney General's power or right to veto any decisions that may be made, if the Comité was perhaps to suggest or recommend that there be specialist presenting Centeniers to the court, that would not be a legal aspect so would the Attorney General be able to veto that?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I do not think he would attempt to veto because we would only be expressing an opinion. We are not a law making body. We can have an opinion.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Maybe I did not word that question as clearly and succinctly as I could have done. If the Comité was to decide to go ahead and have these specialist Centeniers presenting in court, would it be able to endorse that?

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I am sorry to interrupt but I think we would have to have the discussion with the Attorney General and say we have come up with -- he has had a copy of this document. He would be the one that would be saying: "Centeniers, I think that this is a very good idea and I like the idea" or "Centeniers, I think you need to think again about this and perhaps come back to me with some better structure or some more meat on the bone." I do not think it would be for us to say: "Excuse me, Mr. Attorney General, here is our recommendations. We have all approved them. Just rubber stamp that." I think we would need to be consulting with the Attorney General and saying: "Here is our recommendations and what do you think?" The only time that he would veto any decision I would have thought is if we had come along with the idea of standing out in the road wearing black and green jackets and looking very stupid or using some of the technology inaccurately or incorrectly.

The Deputy of St. Martin : Or inappropriately.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

I think if we had made a recommendation when we were using speed detection equipment that we would have to stand with our feet in a bucket of water, I know that sounds stupid, but that is the type of thing that he would then veto. With regard to the specialist group of Centeniers, I think that we would be needing to talk to him first and say that we have got these ideas which is what we did with regard to the jurisdiction of officers and changing the election date for Centeniers. We went to him with this idea and he said: "I think it is a great idea, yes. We are going to give you advocate, Stephen Pallot to do the work" and he will then communicate with him.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

I know we are anxious to close, Bob, but I was just thinking, I think there may need to be some legislation. Because let us say we end up with having 20 Centeniers, who are the court Centeniers, there is going to have to be some way in which a case that originates in St. Mary , who perhaps do not have one of the 20 presenting Centeniers, can routinely be slotted into the system and the whole question of cross-boundary policing and things, which is all in the melting pot to some extent anyway. These discussions are well on the way so I think there would need to be legislation and that legislation will only emanate from work that is done in the Crown Office anyway.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

Is it not a process that would arise through evolution in as much as, at the moment, certain parishes have Centeniers presenting? St. Helier , for instance, has a pool of Centeniers who present and there are, I believe, some who do not present cases in court. So this, in fact, is something that appears to be happening at the moment.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

It does.  As I said to you earlier on, 2 out of the 4 of us basically rarely go to court.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

The 1996 law allows for it, does it not?  The regulations?

Centenier G. Cornwall: Indeed, indeed.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

That is not the problem. The problem comes with regard to charging and we have also been working on that as well. For instance, if a parish suddenly, for some catastrophic reason, lost all its Centeniers overnight and there was not anybody in charge - say, in St. Peter - we are looking now to have an amendment to the law so the Constable could request, in an emergency situation, some Centeniers from another parish to come into charge and bail. There is that recommendation which is also in the hands of advocate, Stephen Pallot, at the moment. He has put together a marvellous package of 3 areas that we recognized very, very early on last year that needed to be looked at. We have had to do an awful lot of work, an awful lot of research, to get to that. One of them is Article 5(2) of the Police Force (Jersey) Law 1974 in that, at the moment, when I am in St. Peter I have full policing powers but if I step across the line by the airport, on the airport road, and I am in St. Brelade , I am a normal citizen. Now, Geoff Cornwall could be standing 2 metres away from me in St. Brelade and he may be having somebody bash hell out of him and I could not, as a police officer, help him. So, we are looking to extend the powers if the duty Centenier of one parish requests the assistance of the duty Centenier of another parish, they have the full policing powers. We have done an awful lot of work and an awful lot of research into this particular matter.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

I am a bit confused here. So, when your officers go to Trinity and help at Jersey Live, they are not police officers?

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Oh, yes, they are bound under Article 5.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Under Article 5(2) at the moment it says the Constable of Parish A may request the assistance of Constable of Parish B. Where we are talking about in an emergency situation --

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Yes, you do not have any authority --

Centenier M. L'Amy:

This cropped up when we had, what has now become known as the Granite Products incident, where life and limb was going to be affected and we were having to pull in officers to create a 300 metre cordon but technically there was a jurisdiction problem for a couple of hours until we sought permission.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Okay, right. I do not think there is anything else to --

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

I would just like to thank both Centeniers for attending this afternoon and it was interesting to hear what Centenier Cornwall said about the hidden agenda because rumour has been rife recently. We are aware that it is perceived in some quarters that that is the case and your words have given me, and I am sure the rest of the panel, some comfort --

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Not saying we should all agree with everything you say, but that is a different matter.  [Laughter]

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian :

No, but it gives us some comfort as to the recognition that there is, indeed, no hidden agenda and, in fact, as you are well aware, I am someone who has come through the Honorary Police system myself, having started as a CO and then become a Vigntenier in St. Lawrence. It is regrettable to me that I was not able to go on and stand as the Centenier because I am sure I would have enjoyed the training that I would have received as a Centenier for the role in its entirety but, in particular, to be able to present cases in court. So, certainly there was no hidden agenda and I would say, for the record, that I am a very strong supporter of the honorary system and hope that it will continue and I would envisage that the report that we will produce will be fair and it must be evidence based. So, therefore, we are not able to make any recommendations or make any statements that are not based on evidence and I hope that allays any worries that members may have. Finally, enjoy your meal this evening. We are very sorry that we are not going to be there ourselves.  [Laughter]

Centenier G. Cornwall:

Well, I think it will be much deserved after a very long time.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

Can I endorse what the Deputy has said again? Thank you for your attendance. Can I just remind you that if there are any things that you feel would be of interest you think to us or to yourself, please feel free? We are not finished yet.

Centenier G. Cornwall:

We will contact Charlie within a month or so.

Centenier M. L'Amy:

Well, I think it may be worth the Comité des Chefs making a decision with regard to those recommendations of whether they like it or not and putting them forward.

The Deputy of St. Martin : To be part of our report.

Centenier G. Cornwall: Yes.

The Deputy of St. Martin :

For consideration of that report.  Okay.

Centenier M. L'Amy: Thank you.

Deputy D.W. Mezbourian : Thank you.

The Deputy of St. Martin : Thank you very much.