Which cases are heard at the old bailey

These published proceedings were produced for public consumption. Published proceedings ceased in by which time they had become largely redundant in the face of newspaper reports of trials. The original proceedings are held at a variety of libraries and not at The National Archives but they are available to search and view online at the Old Bailey Proceedings Online website.

The Chadwyck Healey microfiche collection of British Trials which also includes a few trials from is available in The National Archives reading rooms and in some major libraries. These unofficial contemporary accounts of trials were originally published as pamphlets and sold to the general public.

They are accompanied by separate name indexes. Accounts of trials held at the Old Bailey after are most likely to survive only in newspaper reports. Often newspapers recorded proceedings in great detail. You can search by name of defendant, type of crime or date for transcripts of proceedings from a small selection of trials, in DPP 4, and transcripts of proceedings , again from a selection of trials, in TS The cases are mainly serious crimes such as murder, robbery, treason and sedition.

Search by name of defendant or type of crime for shorthand notes from selected cases , in J These are trials that were referred to the Court of Criminal Appeal, mostly after though there are a few files from The Old Bailey contains a network of cells used to hold prisoners awaiting trial and, for those convicted of the crimes they were tried for, after the trial too.

Records of convicted criminals held prisoner at the court exist in the form of after-trial calendars. There are no after-trial calendars after Something similar called memorandums of convictions have been kept since but they are supposed to be destroyed after 20 years and therefore do not get transferred to The National Archives.

Browse through the record series of after-trial calendars by clicking on the links below to find details of prisoners tried within the following year ranges:. Use our catalogue to search deposition records by name of defendant and date. Either restrict your search to the following record series or browse by reference by clicking on the links:.

Some depositions include plans and photographs. Some are closed for years. You can search by surname of the accused by consulting the alphabetically arranged calendars and indexes of indictments. You will need to know the approximate date of the trial to find the right calendar or index. Use the reference obtained through the calendars and indexes listed above to access indictments within the following periods:.

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By Henry Vaughan. By Ted Hennessey. UK Teenage neo-Nazi locked up for plotting terrorist acts Matthew Cronjager shared his plans with an undercover police officer who had infiltrated a Telegram group called The British Hand. By Tom Pilgrim. By Jess Glass. By Daniel Keane. The difficulty of proving that the victim had no knowledge of the crime made it difficult to convict defendants of this offence, though many were found guilty lesser charges through use of partial verdicts.

Many pickpocketing cases involved prostitutes stealing from their clients. From the definition of the offence was loosened to include any theft from the person. In other words, victims no longer needed to prove that the theft was committed without their knowledge.

The same statue removed the death penalty for this offence. By a statute of receiving stolen goods, knowing them to be stolen, made the recipient an accessory to a felony.

Normally, prosecutions under this heading were only possible after someone had been convicted of the original theft. The offence of "privately stealing" 5 shillings or more worth of goods from a shop was defined separately as a capital offence in This reflects concern over the apparent increase in this offence, which was thought difficult to prevent, and reflects the rapid growth in the number of shops in London.

Theft of this sort taking place before is also included in this category. In shoplifting ceased to be a capital offence.

A category created in following the abolition of the distinction between petty larceny and grand larceny. This offence covered all types of theft perpetrated without any other aggravating circumstance, such as assault or breaking and entering, theft from the person or from a specified place.

Following the passage of the Criminal Justice Act in , many of these cases were tried summarily by magistrates rather than at the Old Bailey. This offence was created in following the passage of an Act "for the further and more adequate punishment of servants convicted of robbing their masters". While theft by servants was indirectly legislated against in , this was the first Act to deal explicitly with theft by employees not just domestic servants and arose in response to industrialisation and the corresponding increase in concern about workers' behaviour.

In it became a felony, without benefit of clergy, to rob mail or steal letters from the Post. According to the Blackstone, the "great malice and mischief" involved in such a crime meant that it should be punished more severely than most other types of theft.

Included in this general category are thefts from warehouses, ships, manufactories, churches, lodging houses, and domestic houses where no breaking and entering took place. See also housebreaking and burglary. This category of offence also includes removing fixed material from a building such as lead from a roof. Some of these crimes violated specific statutes which prescribed the penalty for specific offences. In , for example, a statute made a capital offence theft from dwelling houses of goods over the value of 40 shillings.

Although such a theft could be prosecuted as a capital offence under a different heading, the desire to create a new and specific offence is entirely typical of eighteenth-century legislative practise. Includes cases of theft where insufficient information is given concerning the value of the goods stolen, the location of the theft, or the manner of the theft, to place the offence in any of the above categories.

Usually these case involve relatively minor thefts, to which the publishers of the Proceedings did not wish to devote much space.

This category also includes grave robbing. The combination violence and theft made these offences some of the most serious tried by the court.

A robbery see below which took place on or near the King's Highway. Although these crimes frequently took place on the outskirts of London, street robberies within London are also included because the streets of London were designated as highways by one of the Transportation Acts.

Because such crimes interfered with the freedom to travel, they were viewed as particularly serious. Many highway robbers travelled on horseback, but the tradition of the "polite" gentleman highway robber was not always realised in practice. Following improvements in policing, road transport, banking and credit, the mounted robber disappeared from English roads in the late s.

The last series of prosecutions for highway robbery were heard at the Old Bailey were in In the next eighty years only three more cases were tried; one in , one in , and a final case in An open and violent assault, resulting in the forcible removal of property of any value from the victim, and putting him or her in fear.

This category of offence also includes robbing the mail where the crime involved force and attempted robbery. This category includes a number of offences which do not fit into any of the other general categories, or where the Proceedings do not specify the offence, stating, for example, that the accused was charged with "a misdemeanour". In the law on infanticide was revised, and proof of murder became a requirement for a conviction.

Where a murder charge was likely to be impossible to prove, the accused could be charged with "concealment of birth" instead, which was punishable by a maximum of two years' imprisonment.

In addition, in cases where the defendant was charged with infanticide the jury were empowered to return "concealment of birth" as a lesser verdict. This category was only used when the nature of the conspiracy was unclear or the offence conspired at, could not be placed in any of the other specific categories. A product of increasing sophistication in the recording of criminal activity, increasing levels of policing, and concerns about the emergence of a "criminal class", the concept of the "habitual criminal" emerged in the late nineteenth century.

In individuals who had been convicted of three or more offences and, being able to do so, had failed to make any efforts to obtain an honest living could be charged with the additional offence of being an "habitual criminal". If convicted they were sentenced to an open-ended period of preventive detention "for the protection of the public.

This was a misdemeanour. However, in taking a child under the age of ten by force or fraud was made a felony. This category of offence also includes trading in slaves, which was outlawed in As a result, many detailed slave trade trials were prosecuted at Old Bailey during the first half of the nineteenth century and recorded in the Proceedings.

Until , Piracy on the high seas fell under the jurisdiction of the Court of Admiralty. Although trials for this offence often took place in the Old Bailey, these were mostly reported separately from the normal Old Bailey Proceedings and only a few are included here. With the passage of the Central Criminal Court Act in , the offence came within the formal jurisdiction of this court. Returning from transportation before the period of the sentence had elapsed was a felony punishable by death.

Before , abortion was punished by a fine or a short term of imprisonment, and abortions which took place before "quickening" i. The first prosecutions for this offence for attempting to induce a miscarriage at the Old Bailey occurred in Over the course of the nineteenth century the law regarding abortion was progressively tightened. In the concept of quickening was removed, but it was only after the passage of the Offences Against the Person Act that the pregnant woman as opposed to the abortionist could be prosecuted.

He or she is usually a solicitor. The CPS has now started employing barristers full-time as in the past barristers worked on a freelance basis. The defence barrister or barristers will also have a solicitor sitting behind them, who has helped prepare the case. Police officers sit either in the back rows behind the barristers, or tucked away at the back of the court. All courts have a press bench for reporters , but these are only used in big trials of great public interest when there is a shortage of seating.

This is because press benches are usually a long way from the court exits and reporters like to go in and out of court at important moments so they can write their stories. A reporter sitting in the press bench is likely to disturb the court as they make their way out of the court, so journalists usually ch0ose to sit by the exits. To book a place now or in future on on of our tours or seminars please email info oldbaileyinsight. Peter Beaumont, Recorder of London , in his blue-fringed robes.

There are three types of judges who preside over cases at the Old Bailey. Most of the barristers are usually to be found in the benches opposite the Jury. Like this: Like Loading Loading Comments Email Name Website.