Defendants won’t attend court over fear of losing cushy cells

 A judge has lambasted the “fashion” for defendants to refuse to leave their prison cells to attend court.

Jamie Tabor QC said the problem arose about two years ago and was due to prisoners’ fears that they might be transferred to a new prison with a harsher regime after the hearing.

The judge, speaking to teachers and schoolchildren visiting Gloucester Crown Court, said: “It has become fashionable for defendants to refuse to come to court. If a prisoner from HMP Hewell in the Midlands is brought down here for trial … he doesn’t know that he will go back. He will just go back to wherever there is a vacancy – which in this area is likely to be Bristol Prison – which defendants think is less comfortable. It has messed up the whole system.”

In 2008, Judge Richard Hayward lashed out at “barking mad” human rights laws after a drug dealer refused to leave his cell because he feared losing it to another inmate.