Greater Manchester
Magistrates in the Community
The aim of MIC is to increase awareness of the role of the Magistracy in the Criminal Justice System and to engage with young people across Greater Manchester, to help them make better choices within the law.
Latest News
Egerton Primary School held a Mock Trial on Cyber Bullying in March with two of the GM MIC team. It was held in the school hall, which was laid out like a court room with seats for the audience. Parents had been invited, in addition to the Headteacher.
The children played all the rolls, except for the presiding justice. They put a lot of effort into learning their parts and presenting in court. The two children who were Magistrates took notes during the Trial and were able to refer to specific evidence which they felt lead to a guilty verdict.
The Mock Trial went extremely well and there was tremendous praise from parents and the Headteacher for the children and for the MIC team.
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In January we were delighted to join in with the Poynton High School Student Development Day giving presentations to eight classes of year 8 students. To each group we gave a general introduction to the Magistrates Court followed by an interactive knife quiz workshop. This addressed the choices and consequences of carrying a knife for the individual, victims and families affected. Being an interactive quiz, it really involved the students and got them engaged to discuss the topics.
Following the event, it was so nice to receive a thank you card from one of the students:
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Greater Manchester Magistrates Association are very proud to have been awarded the
MA National Education Award 2023.
This was awarded by the national Magistrates Association at their Annual Conference AGM 2023 in recognition of the work of the Greater Manchester Magistrates in the Community Team.
The citation with the award stated:
"Your branch has visited the most schools of any other branch in relation to your size demonstrating strong community outreach and educating initiative."
Rachel, the Greater Manchester Magistrates in the Community (MIC) Coordinator accepted the award on behalf of the whole MIC team. To hear what Rachel said about how we aim to influence the choices young people make through the GM MIC outreach work, click on the following link:
Details of this on the Magistrates Association X or Twitter feed can be seen via the following link:
https://x.com/MagsAssoc/status/1736802937576501735?s=20
This now joins the High Sheriff of Greater Manchester's Citation that was presented to us following another very sucessful Annual Year 6 Mock Trial Competition, held in June 2023.
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2023 WAS A VERY BUSY YEAR FOR GM-MIC
We are delighted to have been invited to give presentations and other interactive activities to approximately 1,700 students and adults. We have completed 162 visits to schools, colleges, universities and community groups. These have been spread over all ten of the Greater Manchester Boroughs.
In June we held our fourth successive Year 6 Magistrates’ Mock Trial Competition. There were 151 children in 16 teams from 15 primary schools, covering 8 of the 10 GM Boroughs. Further details about this event, and how to join us for the next one in June 2024, are shown on this web page:
2023 YEAR 6 MOCK TRIAL COMPETITION
The GM Magistrates Association has been working in partnership with GMP Violence Reduction Unit and Round Midnight to launch the Violence Prevention through Virtual Education programme, Virtual Decisions. More details about this are shown on this web page:
VIRTUAL REALITY KNIFE CRIME REDUCTION INITIATIVE
We are already arranging visits well into 2024. If you would like us to visit your school or adult group, please email us at enquiries@gmma-mic.net
Feedback from a couple of the schools we have recently visited:
"The students thoroughly enjoyed the sentencing exercise and your visit (as always), and I think there might be a few budding lawyers emerging from the group!
Many thanks again to you and your colleagues for another excellent afternoon."
Teacher - Year 9 students
"Thanks so much for your time coming in to lead your sentencing session with our Sociology groups. In the lessons following your session it has been a brilliant reference point. It has been helpful for the students to have an idea of the processes involved in the magistrate’s court."
Teacher – Year 12 students
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Presentation to 450 Criminology students.
On the 20th October we had the pleasure of presenting to 450 first year Criminology students at Manchester Met’ University. This was the second time that we have been invited to give a presentation to the new academic years intake.
We started with using an online polling app to ask a few introductory questions. The students used their phones to answer, and we shared the results live with the audience. This was followed by a short PowerPoint presentation about the magistrates court. We finished with a sentencing case study for assault occasioning ABH. The students all had to participate by following structured sentencing methods and the court sentencing guidelines to determine the appropriate sentence.
We were delighted to receive very positive feedback from students and staff. Comments included “It truly brought the work of magistrates alive. It was an absolute highlight and really worked magic in engaging our very large cohort.”
The images below show the polling app and PowerPoint presentations taking place and the Magistrates in the Community team that assisted in presenting at the MMU.
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Greater Manchester Magistrates Association Mock Trial
Competition 2023
Greater Manchester Magistrates Association Mock Trial Competition for year six students was held on the 21st June at Hemsley House in Salford. It was a great success and thoroughly enjoyed by all.
This annual competition involves the students acting out a trial in which they play all the major roles including magistrates, solicitors, defendants, and witnesses. This year, there was also a sentencing exercise workshop on ‘cyberbullying’ to look at the potential consequences of a guilty sentence.
In addition to the competition, other agencies attended the day to talk to students about staying safe. These included Greater Manchester Police, British Transport Police, Early Break (Health & Wellbeing Services), Travel Safe and Greater Manchester Fire & Rescue Service. Our sincere thanks goes to them for their support.
The newly appointed High Sheriff of Manchester, Mary-Liz Walker JP DL attended and presented individual outstanding performance award, the runners up shield and winners shield.
This years winners were Well Green Primary School, Hale and the runners up were Button Lane Primary School, Wythenshawe.
Further pictures and information is available on the 2023 Y6 Mock Trial Competition page of this web site.
A news report about the competition has been published by the Tameside Reporter.
Click the link below to see the report:
https://www.questmedianetwork.co.uk/news/tameside-reporter/schools-compete-in-mock-court-trial/
"Thanks for the opportunity for our children today. They loved it!
They came back absolutely buzzing. They had a fantastic day.
It’s opportunities like this that might just make that difference in the life chances of our children“
Head Teacher of participating primary school
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High Sheriff awards a Citation to
Greater Manchester Magistrates in the Community team
At the end of this year’s Year 6 Mock Trial Competition, the Manchester Magistrates in the Community team were honoured to receive a citation from the High Sheriff, Mary-Liz Walker "in recognition of so many years of dedicated service to communities across GM by this wonderful group of magistrate volunteers".
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SOCIAL CARE & SOCIAL WORK STUDENTS
WORKING IN ADULT & FAMILY COURTS
On 13th March Greater Manchester Magistrates in the Community (GM-MIC) took part in an all-day session with the MA Social Work & Social Care Students at Manchester Metropolitan University (ManMet) using their Moot Court facility. This started with a brief introduction to the role of the Magistrate. It was followed by a simulated sentencing exercise in which students learnt how to reach appropriate sentencing options in a Section 47 Assault case. They were shown how to use a structured approach by using the Sentencing Guidelines and analysing a range of factors.
The afternoon session was a first for GM-MIC as it involved a Family Court matter with a case study in the form of a short report prepared by Margaret Struthers, Senior Lecturer in Social Work at ManMet. The report was an application for a Special Guardianship Order and each of the students took the oath and were then asked questions on the report by the bench.
Margaret Struthers said, "Working with MIC enabled us to create an authentic and immersive learning experience for the students. Talking to and learning from people who make decisions in court is an invaluable experience for our students. It enhances their knowledge and skills in areas such as court etiquette, legal literacy, provision of best evidence and report writing. We were also very pleased to speak to the magistracy more generally about social work practice."
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Operation Sceptre Knife Crime Initiative
We have been delighted to work with Greater Manchester Police during their Operation Sceptre week #OpSceptre. This was a national initiative to raise awareness of the dangers and consequences of knife crime, in the hope that people make the right decision and not carry a knife. By making the right choice, we can save lives and help keep our streets safe.
We joined GM Police OpSceptre teams during visits to St Patrick's RC Primary in Oldham and Deanery High School, Dean Trust Orrel, Oakfield High School, Rose Bridge Academy, and New Bridge School, all in Wigan.
In addition, our magistrates took part in GMP’s Operation Sceptre Live Chat event. We worked alongside GMP’s Violence Reduction Unit, the CPS and other support services around knife crime to answer questions from the public on issues of knife crime and the sentencing approach in court.
There were 40 questions in total with 172 participants from the general public. This was a great collaboration with multiple agencies to tackle knife crime in our area.
Follow us on Twitter
@GMMA_MIC
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MIC PRESENTATIONS
Now that we are now post-Covid with schools and other organisations being back to a more normal routine, we are pleased to again be making live presentations.
We have produced the following risk assessment plan which will apply to all MIC presenters until further notice.
MIC RISK ASSESSMENT
- Anyone displaying symptoms of the coronavirus will not undertake MIC presentations
- Names and contact details of Magistrates will be sent to the organisation at least 24 hours prior to the presentation
- Presentation material can be emailed to the organisation in advance. All material is copyright to the Magistrates’ Association and should be deleted following the presentation.
- Magistrates should not operate the computer keyboard unless specifically authorised by the teacher/organiser.
- Teachers must always accompany Magistrates in class during the presentations.
- Magistrates will comply with any regulations set down by the venue.
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What others have said about MIC presentations:
"I liked the interactivity of making decisions about a case within a group since it made the experience quite fun and added variation, so it wasn't limited to just being a talk. I also thought the Magistrates walking around and getting involved with the group's discussions was good because it gave a chance to talk to them directly and added a new perspective to the decision-making process"
Student yr 10
"They explained their roles well and the interactive part where we got to discuss what sentencing we’d give the case study was really interesting"
Student yr 9
Teacher yr 9
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Where it all started:
Over 30 years ago the chair of the Magistrates Association started talking to local schools about what magistrates did.
She soon realised that many adults were also unaware of how the courts system worked.
The concept of Magistrates in the Community (MIC) was born and embedded as an integral part of the Magistrates' Association activities by fulfilling one of its charitable aims "... educating and instructing Magistrates and others in the law, the administration of justice, the treatment of offenders and the prevention of crime"
30 years on, magistrates from local benches are going out to schools, colleges and to community groups to talk about what we do. Across the country, we talk to more than 80,000 members of the public each year.
This website presents the activities of the MIC groups of Greater Manchester.
There is no presentation fee or any expectation of payment. If an adult organisation cares to make a voluntary contribution, this would be used to help fund our activities providing presentations, mock trials and knife crime initiatives to schools and other youth groups.