Today a defendant attended Court with his probation officer, a woman of 40 years experience at NPS. Not only had she predicted his plea, but she’d written up a PSR! She sat in the gallery, chatted to the Judge and he pleaded & was sentenced all in one day. https://twitter.com/crimegiri/status/1308477599941787648

“I am an officer of the Court” she told me. “I think it is disgusting that offender managers do not come to Court with their clients anymore. It is inefficient. My primary duty is to the Court and that is why I am here”

The report was faultless - balanced and sensible.

The Judge was seriously impressed - we all were. If that’s how things were done ‘in the old days’ then fund probation properly and bring them back please

(She probably wouldn’t have been allowed to come to Court but she had the air of someone who didn’t give a stuff about what she was and wasn’t ‘allowed’ to do. She was An Institution and she knew it)