Courts have always been a big interest of mine. Experiencing how the judicial system works and how punishments are formed is so intriguing. Earlier in the week we traveled to another courthouse in London called the Highbury Magistrates Court which is for lower level offenses and although that was quite the experience comparing their Magistrates Court to the U.S, I was so excited to go to the Old Bailey. The Old Bailey tries some of the most horrendous offenses in the UK. Judge Joseph, a longstanding judge at the Old Bailey that we got to speak to before our tour began stated “it’s the most popular court in the World,” she also mentioned that on an everyday basis the most crimes she tries are murders and went on to tell us a few of them. Courtroom number thirteen is the courtroom we got to sit in that day and what I heard that day is never what I could’ve imagined. It was horrific. I won’t go into too much detail but the UK is going through a knife epidemic, similar to the U.S’s gun epidemic and the case involved two male defendants aged 17 and 18 and the murder of an 18 year old. Although the case was a lot to handle I learned so much about their judicial system, how their trials are run and even about the UK’s culture. I even went back when the tour was over when we had free time to proceed listening to the case.
