An inside look at the workings of our justice system

Drunken rants, threats to the press and a toaster thief – just another day at magistrates’ court

It’s 9.15am on Friday, July 22, and the start of a sultry summer morning in Canterbury. Not a day one might want to be forced to go up before the beak.

Far from the smooth start to the day the photographer and I had been hoping for, among the earliest visitors to the Broad Street building were two members of the Kent constabulary.

Apparently, a female solicitor unaware that it is entirely lawful to take photographs of people walking in to court has rung them.

I often wonder how people who don’t know this think that the media acquires its images of people like Rolf Harris or Max Clifford arriving at Her Majesty’s courts.

The police spend 30 seconds checking we’re not doing anything wrong and are off.

Minutes later the snapper takes a picture of a group of people emerging from a taxi and things get ugly.

One, a blond- haired man of about 40 swigging from a large bottle of Stella Artois (it is 9.30am), becomes instantly aggressive.

He begins shouting at the snapper and moving towards him. I stand in between them and tell the cameraman to retreat, all the while trying to reason with him.

He tells me we have no right to take his picture. I tell him we have, but that if he’s not a defendant, he’s unlikely to feature in the paper.

Appearing to calm down, he shakes my hand. turns out the man was accompanying the first defendant of the day, Emily Parr. The 34-yearold, who lives in Whitstable Road, pleads guilty to being drunk and disorderly in the city.

Prosecutor Paul Edwards tells the court that police received a call on July 4 about suspected shoplifters operating at the Superdrug store in St George’s Street.

Parr and a man were nearby and she began shouting and swearing at officers. She was arrested and charged.

Having admitted the offence, her conviction puts in her breach of conditional discharges for another drunk and disorderly and being drunk in charge of a child.

Scott Neilson, Parr’s solicitor, says her offending is related to alcohol misuse and that she has been suffering from “mental deterioration”.

The all-female bench of three magistrates go out to consider their sentencing options.

Parr falls asleep in the dock while the blond-haired man, who had been listening intently from the public gallery at the back of