Hello, it’s court four here: We’ve got a lot of business to get through but no one’s here ...

When we both shook our heads, he picked up the phone with a sigh and the air of someone who’d seen it all before.

“Hello, it’s court four here,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of business to get through and there’s no one here.” And how right he was.

TV dramas have created a perception that courtrooms are full of intrigue and drama. If only that was true.

The first case of the day saw a man in his 20s sentenced to carry out unpaid work for his part in a drunken melee. Thankfully, he’d actually showed up. The second case set the tone for the rest of the morning. It involved a woman from Fife, but she hadn’t turned up, her solicitor telling the court she didn’t have enough money for the train fare.

No one batted an eyelid and the case was kicked into touch.

The third case was an assault charge but we’re told it can’t proceed because one of the witnesses is on holiday. So the witnesses who have shown up and have missed being at work for a morning have completely wasted their time.

In the fourth case, we hear about a man in his 30s racially abusing a black bouncer.

He had previously pleaded not guilty because he was so drunk he couldn’t remember it – an excuse trotted out with such regularity that no one ever questions how ridiculous it sounds.

Like a lot of accused people, the man has had a change of heart, has decided he can remember it after all and is pleading guilty. His case is deferred for a report to decide whether he should be fined or given unpaid work.

Cases five, six, seven and eight are all called and put off in a matter of minutes.

And so it carried on. I saw court staff twiddling their thumbs while security officers tried to find people who had wandered off and a series of lawyers confirming not guilty pleas and trials dates being set.

Most of them were set for the same couple of days and, given the speed of business on show, it’s hard to see how they’d all go ahead.

The stream of people who didn’t turn up for their case told the most illuminating story.

Several warrants for arrest were issued but some cases were simply put off to see if the accused might deign to show up next time.

And the only real surprise at the end of the day? The fact that the bill for all this wasted time isn’t even more than £10million. staring at me. I felt it was very intimidating.”

The man, who’d insisted on his right to a trial, was found not guilty.

Marion said: “The whole legal system needs to be reviewed so that the needs of witnesses to crimes and victims of crime can be looked after – otherwise people are going to stop coming forward.”