ABSTRACT
Radical reforms to modernise the criminal courts and strip out 500,000 hearings a year were announced by the government in 2015. There are over 12,000 different criminal offences in English law, 3,700 of which have been created since 1997. The court is required in certain cases to consider a compensation order and to give reasons if it decides not to make such an order. Compensation orders are governed by the provisions of ss 130––134 of the Powers of the Criminal Courts (Sentencing) Act 2000. Traditionally, the aim of the youth court system has been to take the young offender out of the normal criminal court environment, and this has involved strict rules about public access to the court. In general, members of the public have not been permitted to attend and reporting restrictions have been very tight. It has to be stated immediately that the coroners’ courts are certainly not, in modern function, part of the criminal courts.
