Myrddin Probus
The club held its annual general meeting on February 2. Tony Evans, vice-president, was installed as president for 202224. He introduced his vicepresident, Neil Hughes.
In his valedictory address, outgoing chairman Howard Thomas thanked fellow officers for their advice and support over the past two years of lockdown. Although club activities were severely restricted, he recounted several enjoyable events that had taken place. Percy Jones was then installed as new chairman and he recommended his vicechairman, Robert Morgan. New officers for committee were voted in by members.
In the following business meeting, Myrddin Davies recommended a full programme of events to get the club up and running, including trips, holidays and theatre visits.
The speaker was Howard Thomas. He gave a talk about his early years after graduating, training as a solicitor in private practice, before being appointed as an assistant prosecuting solicitor, firstly with South Wales Police, before joining the newly formed Prosecuting Solicitors Department at Carmarthen serving the Dyfed-powys force.
He described, with examples, the type and range of cases which he undertook at the many magistrates’ courts scattered throughout the six old counties covered by the force.
He went on to describe some of the great changes which had taken place in the system since his involvement so many years ago; these included the setting up of a single prosecuting body, the Crown Prosecution Service covering the whole country, and the centralisation of the courts to provide only one magistrates’ court in each of the old counties in place of the many in towns and villages throughout the force area.
One of the greatest impacts, however, had been through developments in forensic science and in particular the use of DNA profiling to assist in matters of identification which had transformed detection and enabled many cases to be concluded which in the past had remained unresolved.
The vote of thanks was given by Bryn Jones.
The club’s next meeting is on Wednesday, March 9.
The club welcomes new members.
For more information, please contact the secretary on 0779 242 3370.