Family and Friends Forum

Taking hard copies to sentencing

Notifications OFF

rainyday52

Member since
April 2023

611 posts

Just a tip after a near miss at our son's sentencing today. He was worried the court computers might crash and where would he be then with his mitigation bits and pieces if they were unavailable for the judge to read. To be perfectly honest I thought he was being a bit OTT about it but so glad he did it as whoever is responsible for everything being uploaded to the court portal hadn't done it.

The defence barrister asked the judge if he could upload his own copies but it was clear that the judge didn't want any more hold ups as he was running late, but he accepted our son's paper copies which he read, albeit rather quickly, but without them in the mix who knows how things would have concluded

All in all it was a bit of a shambles, and the moral of the story is - don't rely on other people or the internet, be a dinosaur and take photocopies of everything!

Posted Fri December 12, 2025 9:12pmReport post

lostinthewoods

Member since
September 2024

222 posts

Absolutely yes take them, or ensure the solicitor has them.

In our case everything had been uploaded on the court system but the magistrates hadn't seen the 2 character references (provided by myself and my adult daughter). The solicitor had copies with her and handed them to the magistrates

It was partly because of the support these showed that he didn't get a prison or even a suspended sentence. Had they not seen these it could have ended very differently.

Posted Sat December 13, 2025 3:26pmReport post

Quick exit