Crime and punishment
Whether you’re summoned to the police station or arrested and charged, your case starts in the Magistrates Court unless you’re in Scotland, in which case the court system is different....
Police and their powers
The police can stop you in the street and ask you to go to the station with them. You can refuse. You don’t have to help them with their enquiries,...
Magistrates
Magistrates hear criminal and some civil and family cases in Magistrates Courts. The official name for a Magistrate is a Justice of the Peace. In Scotland, Sheriffs, Magistrates, and Justices...
The civil courts
If you want to make a case against someone and you want to claim compensation for poor Garage work on your car or for personal injury, as an example it...
The criminal courts
If the police arrest and then charge you with committing a criminal offence in England and Wales, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS), a Government department, decides whether you should be...