A Tuesday at Snaresbrook Crown Court offered a familiar mix of pressure, dysfunction, and occasional humanity. From allegations of indecent exposure in an East London park, to judges grappling with overcrowded court lists, the day’s hearings revealed both the strain on the criminal justice system and the very human moments that still emerge within it.
First up was an application to rescind bail for a 29-year-old man, said to have acted in a “sexually predatory manner” by exposing himself to four schoolgirls, all 16, in an East London park last week. The man denies all the charges.
Magistrates had allowed him to be at liberty in the community pending trial … but he had his bail revoked by Her Honour Judge Griffiths. No trial date was set and automatic reporting restrictions prevent us from providing further information.
The next case, an application to extend a custody time limit, was memorable for a display of humanity by the judge.
The 25-year-old defendant, who is being held in prison pending trial, could not be accommodated by the court within the mandatory six-month time limit. The prosecution were therefore asking for a 10-week-extension of his incarceration to allow the trial to take place.
Ultimately granting the short extension HHJ Sarah-Jane Griffiths said that since 2024 there had been a “significant increase” of the number of cases being sent to Snaresbrook each month. She cited the January 2024 figure of 280 cases, and the January 2025 figure of 395 cases, as an example. 39% of these involved defendants in custody awaiting trial, we were told.
At this court we currently have around 3,500 trials outstanding at this court which is a large number of trials. Some are short, some are long trials.
A lot of that work is long trials. We are running close to capacity with court rooms siting. What this court centre does have is a problem with cell capacity. We have limited cell capacity. We can’t list every court as a custody trial court.
… There is a fine balance every day and every week as to which case is a priority.
The resident judge, HHJ Rosa Dean, was in daily communications with the list office, and there were weekly discussions with other courts, to find spaces for trials to take place earlier than scheduled, we were told.
During this ruling a woman entered the public gallery with a young baby in her arms, and the defendant looked over with a big grin from the dock.
The judge said “of course you can bring a baby, but if the baby cries I do need you to take the baby outside“.
It was clarified that the baby had been born since the previous hearing, and this was the first time the defendant, the father, had seen his daughter.
“She was perfectly behaved” remarked HHJ S Griffiths at the end of the hearing as she granted the defendant’s request to “give her a quick kiss“
“We’re all human…You can touch your baby as well” said the judge.
The father, who is facing various blackmail, robbery, firearms, threatening behaviour, and kidnapping offences, thanked the judge before he was taken into the cells.
Over in courtroom 9 a trial was due to start at 11.30 – but the jury bundle apparently wouldn’t reach court until 2pm.
In her characteristically assertive and perhaps somewhat bolshy manner, HHJ S Canavan said “I make orders not because I like the sound of my own voice, despite the views of members of the bar, but to avoid wasting court time.” The jury were released for a lengthy lunch break.
“Let’s find you somewhere else to go as this is ridiculous” the judge said to a young observer, sitting adjacent to her on the bench.
A sentencing hearing before Recorder Leo Seelig was next. The defendant, 45, in the words of the judge, had an “awful history of offending” having already received 42 convictions for 94 offences.
This was a complicated sentencing exercise as there were effectively four episodes of criminality to consider including aggravated vehicle taking, possession of cannabis, dangerous driving, assaulting emergency workers, and driving whilst disqualified.
One of these episodes concerned a homeowner’s son tracking down their mother’s stolen car, using the ‘Find My AirPods’ feature, to track down the vehicle. The defendant was found at the car, and promptly threatened to stab the son before driving away.
Another episode, shown in a lengthy body worn video clip, shows the defendant dangerously driving around a set of roads, at various points stopping to ‘reverse ram’ into the police car.
The chase had to be aborted as the Met Police didn’t have any other units available to assist. We heard communications over the police radio informing the officers that there was “no way of bringing this to an end” as there was “no tactical resolution possible”.
The third episode also concerned a lengthy police chase, this time brought to an end by a collision between the defendant and a taxi minibus, resulting in about £12,000 of costs to the victim. Shouting “he drove it into me” from the defendant in the dock did not curry favour with the judge who said the assertion “doesn’t strike me as being his best point in the litigation“.
In mitigation the defendant’s barrister told the court that “between age 3 and 11 he was in various care homes and foster homes. He used to run back to mum and receive violence from her abusive partners … He became homeless at age 12 and has been in and out of care, on and off the streets throughout his childhood.“
We’re told he has become “entrenched within the system, in and out of prison, in and out of the courts, on a regular basis“. We were told he had found his long-term partner deceased at home in circumstances too tragic to report. Also, the partners family had banned him from the funeral and that he “doesn’t even know where she is buried“.
I won’t detail the lengthy sentencing exercise carried out by recorder Leo Seelig – for the reason that it all seems a bit pointless. The headline figure of 35 months and 2 weeks in prison, with a release on licence at 40%, means being incarcerated for some 61 weeks.
The overall average cost for running a prison place for a year in 2022-23 was £51,724.
The other costs to society – from damage to the police cars, threats to members of the public, among many others, soon rack up to quite an amount.
It is disappointing that nothing in the sentence will do anything to help stop this chap from offending the moment he steps outside of prison.
What a shame.
The prosecutor in this case wasn’t actually present for the delivery of the sentencing remarks – he had another hearing to attend. “OK, great – I’ll just be in two places at once then shall I” he said when learning the times clashed.
“I’d like to know what the hell is going on”
This was the line said by Her Honour Judge Caroline English when learning that counsel for a plea hearing were appearing over video link rather than in-person.
The defendant had apparently refused to attend court from prison – although the exact circumstances were unclear.
We were told a named person, purporting to be from the admin office, had confirmed a video link was acceptable – the difficulty was that no one in court had heard of that person before. A laminated sheet appeared and was studied by the clerk, who confirmed the mystery admin officer was not on the list.
The barristers were told to forward the email purporting to grant them permission so further investigations could be made.
The mouseinthecourt spent the day at Snaresbrook Crown Court on Tuesday 12th May 2026.
Mouse in the Court 