I'll try to be brief then:

You say that your case has already been adjourned to trial today and that you will not be legally represented by a lawyer

Assuming you have been given a hearing time of 10 a.m. you should be there before 09.45 at the very latest

When you are called into Court you will be asked to take an oath , or affirm to tell the truth and confirm your name and address. Then you will be asked to re-confirm your plea. If you have changed your mind about your plea, that is the time to tell the Court

Next, the prosecutor will call the rail company's first witness, usually the inspector that reported you and the prosecutor will ask that witness to tell the Court what happened, how your alleged offence was detected and expand on the statement s/he has given by explaining things in more detail as required.

When the prosecutor has finished, you will have an opportunity to cross-examine (question) that witness to draw out any inconsistencies in his/her story.

After you have finished the prosecutor gets a further chance to re-examine the witness.

That process is repeated with each of the prosecution witnesess. In my experience that is unlikely to be more than 2, but more are possible. At any time during all of this procedure, the Magistrates, or their Legal Advisor may interrupt proceedings with questions of their own. The prosecutor will summarise the case against you and may remind the Magistrates of the legislation under which the charge has been laid.

Once all the prosecution witnesses have been heard and finished with, it will be your turn to either call any witnesses you have, or go into the witness box yourself and to give your version of events on oath.

If you choose not to go into the witness box so as to avoid being questioned by the prosecutor, the Magistrates will be entitled to draw any conclusion they wish from your silence on the matter.

The process of questioning the defence witnesses is conduted exactly as the prosecutor's procedure, but if you are not professionally represented, you will lead the questioning of each witness. The Court Legal Advisor will guide you through the process but cannot conduct the case for you

When you have finished with your witnesses or, have finished telling your side of the story the prosecutor will be entitled to question you and again, at any time during the process you can expect to be questioned by the Magistrates or their Legal Advisor.

Once all this is done the Magistrates will usually rise to consider their verdict and may be out of Court for some time. Once they are all agreed they will come back into Court and tell you their decision and explain why they have arrived at that decision.

It is impossible to predict accurately how long this will take. If your case starts on time (which it may not) and there is only one witness for the prosecution, I expect it will take around 45 minutes to an hour. As a very rough guide, you can add 15 -20 minutes for each additional witness.

Hope that helps.

.

This post has been made a sticky in order to help others who might be facing the daunting visit to a court room

This is a trial scenario, if just attending to plead guilty the process is much shorter/quicker.

Yes, the original query was about the trial procedure.

If you are attending Court on a Summons for the very first hearing this will proceed as follows:

If you wish to plead 'guilty' you may either attend Court and respond personally, or do so by post and can send any written explanation to go with your signed plea form and statement of means (earnings and expenditure)

If you are attending (always a good idea) You should still arrive in good time before the scheduled time on the Summons.

When you are called into Court you will be asked to state your full name, date of birth and address.

The Legal Advisor will then read the charge to you as written on the Summons and ask whether you plead guilty or not guilty.

If you plead not guilty the case will be adjourned for trial and the process explained earlier will apply.

If you plead guilty, the prosecutor will then give the details of the offence and a summary of what happend from the inspectors report. S/he may read the whole statement if necessary.

Then you will be asked if you have anything further to say. If you accept that you are guilty of the offence and don't deny anything about it, then it is a good idea to apologise to the Court and the rail company.

The Magistrates will consider their verdict and you will be told their decision. They may go out of Court for a few minutes, but in many cases where a guilty plea is entered, they will make their decision without leaving the bench.

If a financial penalty is imposed, it is due to the Court there and then and if you cannot make payment immediately you will need to ask for time to pay. Do make a sensible and affordable offer. Very low and what might be termed derisory offers are sometimes made and this tends to lose any sympathy the Magistrates might have had.

If you have pleaded guilty by letter, the Court will write to you very soon adfter the hearing to tell you how much you must pay and that is due straight away. If you cannot pay, you must contact the Court to make arrangments to clear the sum due.

All posts made by ros123 and any responses have either been unapproved or moved to a thread dedicated to ros123's problem. Sorry for anyone who got cagbotted.

Link to ros123 thread is .. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/showthread.php?321198-ros123-query-for-Old-CoDja-please