B v Barking Youth Court

When deciding whether to send a defendant under 18 to the Crown Court for trial on a specified offence, a youth court must apply the statutory dangerousness criterion and act within conventional public law limits. The preference for trial in a Youth Court remains important, but it does not prevent committal where the offence is serious and the statutory test is met. A pre-sentence or young offender team report is desirable and may be particularly important, but its absence does not automatically invalidate the decision. The reviewing court must ask whether the youth court misunderstood the law, acted perversely, or reached a conclusion outside its statutory discretion.

The claimant, aged 16, sought judicial review of the Barking Youth Court’s decision on 3 January 2006 to send him to the Crown Court for trial on two robbery charges. The court relied on his previous convictions and the alleged circumstances of the robberies, and concluded that there was a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm from further offending.

The claimant argued that the youth court had failed to respect the preference for trial in a Youth Court, lacked sufficient material to apply the dangerousness criterion, and should instead have applied section 24 of the Magistrates’ Courts Act 1980. The central issue was whether the committal decision was unlawful on judicial review.

1. The application was dismissed. The Barking Youth Court had made a lawful decision to send the claimant to the Crown Court for trial.
2. Sections 51A(3)(d) of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, 224, 226(3) and 228(2) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 required consideration of whether there was a significant risk to members of the public of serious harm occasioned by further offending. Robbery was a specified and serious offence.
3. The guidance in Ghanbari [2005] EWHC Admin 2929 recognised the importance of the legislative policy that defendants under 18 should, wherever possible, be tried in a Youth Court. It also emphasised particular rigour in assessing dangerousness and the desirability of a pre-sentence report following young offender team assessment. That guidance was important, but did not make a report an indispensable precondition in every case.
4. The court’s supervisory task was confined to conventional public law grounds. It had to ask whether the youth court misunderstood the law, acted perversely, or reached a conclusion outside the margin of discretion conferred by statute. The youth court had not been asked to adjourn for a report, although an adjournment could have been sought.
5. On the material before the youth court, including the claimant’s antecedents and the alleged use of a disguise and threat of violence against members of the public on public transport, it was entitled to find the statutory risk of serious harm. There was no lawful basis for intervention.

The judgment does not state any prior appellate decision in the same proceedings. Permission to apply for judicial review was granted by Mr Justice Holman on 16 May 2006.