Magistrates Court

 

Today I'm talking about this magistrates court, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Not only has it got rather spiffing architecture, but it was a fun challenge to get into. Granted, as soon as we did, we entered a room with a big beefy security guy sat inside, luckily with his back to us listening to the radio, and needless to say, we exited that room as quickly and quietly as possible. This is going to be one of those "pray the floorboards aren't creaky" adventures. 

But anyway, I've never blogged about a magistrates court before. I did a coroners court once but that was so wrecked it barely counts. I want to enter a court room and feel like I'm looking at a court room, not my parents marriage. I've never entered a court room in my non-urbex life either. Really the only way to do that is either by working there or by being naughty, which I absolutely never am, swear on my crackhead neighbours life. But it's this sort of thing that makes urbex special. Sure, everyone likes a random rural cottage where a family have mysteriously vanished, but we know what houses look like! I absolutely love that urbex brings me the opportunity to see things that I wouldn't ordinarily get to see. It's like getting behind the scenes a bit. 

Here's what the magistrates court looked like back in the days of monochrome:

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

There's a big central archway on the courts frontage that served as the main entrance in recent years but was originally access to an inner yard, allowing magistrates to come via horse-driven coaches. But what the public didn't know was that every night a van full of gold bullion would make its way from the Bank of England in London to thire branch in Liverpool, and if it got there too late, they'd park it in that little magistrates yard overnight, protected only by a yale lock and an unarmed policeman.

 

 

I guess this would have been the inner yard, converted at some point into an interior reception and  waiting area. There are lights on in here, and an assorted range of builder paraphernalia, indicating that our beloved courts days are numbered. Construction sites don't exactly tickle my pickle, in an urbexual way, but when am I ever going to have an opportunity to see a court room again? 

 

(Actually there are quite a few out there, but it's a case of being bothered to travel across the UK when I can go abroad for cheaper and do better urbex there.)

 

 

This court house was built between 1857 and 1859, under the designs of a chap called John Grey Weightman, who designed a hell of a lot of other stuff, mainly churches and railway stations in the UK. He died in 1883 but an article about his death indicates that he may have served here as a magistrate after retiring from being an architect. And really, that's quite wholesome. Like baking a cake for someone else and still getting to eat it. 

One other notable person who worked here, albeit much later, was Paul O'Grady, who was an assistant clerk before moving to London in the 1970s.

 

There were seven courts in this building, all numbered, forming a network of 21 courts across four buildings in the city. The courtrooms numeric titles went up to 22 because there was no court 13, what with it being considered bad luck. I'm not sure why thirteen could be considered unlucky in a court room. I'm fairly certain lives were ruined in every single one at some point, but hey-ho.

Behind this particular courthouse was a small prison and police HQ that opened in 1864. There was an underground tunnel connecting the two buildings so that prisoners could be taken to their trials in privacy. Perhaps a little too private. In 1981 a gay prisoner alleges to have been raped by the police in one of those cells, and that's disgusting and awful, but in the modern era where revelations about abuse of power are coming out all the time, it's sadly not that surprising. The tunnel was blocked off around 1999, and that building ended up becoming student accommodation.

 

 I love that there's still court scribblings on the whiteboard. In all these years, nobody has wiped it off.

 

 

The main waiting area is this big hallway with an arched ceiling, littered with builder shit, but still with a few decent original features.

 

 

So, in regards to history, the very first trial to take place here was in 1860, and that involved a baker called William Malone, who was charged with attempted suicide. 

Seriously, I can't believe that was ever a thing. Here at the court, the charges were dropped on the condition that he not do it again. Yes, that will teach him.

That same day, another trial involved Thomas Cannell, a crew member of a ship who was charged with desertion after failing to show up on the morning his ship sailed. He admitted in court that he was drunk and had overslept, and he was consequently jailed for ten weeks. 

 

These trials were allegedly overseen by a rather famous magistrate, Thomas Raffles, who had a reputation for being firm but fair, caring when he needed to be but merciless if someone had acted unreasonably. He sounds alright.

 

It's definitely impossible to cover every single trial that ever took place here, and it would probably fry my brain to even try, but it would make a very short blog if I just bypassed a century of judicial practice and skipped to the end. There are a few notable cases to be spoken about. In 1898 it was the scene of quite possibly the first time footballers appeared in court anywhere. 

 

Three Liverpool players were arrested following a game. Hugh Morgan went out on the town with a George Allan, and got into a spat with another player, John Walker. Apparently some member of the public alerted a policeman who got involved and restrained George Allan, whereupon the other two players were like "Oi, mind your own business" and put their differences aside to attack the policeman. 

They were charged with a breach of the peace and obstructing a constable, but in court it all just devolved into a territorial racial thing. The footballers were all Scottish, and both they and the English Police officer claimed that each had made derogatory remarks based on their respective places of origin, at which point the case was dismissed and the magistrate reminded them that they weren't on a football ground, before sending them all on their way.

(Photos not mine, obviously)

Left to right: John Walker looking like a serial killer, George Allan looking like a super villain, and Hugh Morgan looking like a Jeremy Kyle guest. Here starts the glorious history of football hooliganism.

 

Other cases range between downright petty and absolutely bonkers. In 1920, Middle-aged John King came to trial here and ended up serving fourteen days in jail for trying to steal the cutlery from a restaurant after having a meal. He admitted to the magistrates that he "had been a bit silly." 

 

And then in 1925 a mechanic called Fred Dorber was charged with being drunk in charge of a car. He was picking some friends up from the Grand National, and had tried some whiskey while he waited for them. He wasn't expecting to get quite as drunk as he did, admitting to the court that he wasn't familiar with whiskey, so he did what he thought was the sensible option and decided to have a nap to sober himself up. Unfortunately a policeman found him sleeping in the drivers seat of the parked car, with a whiskey bottle next to him, and it didn't look good. Here in court he was told that he was entitled to an adjournment if he wanted to seek legal advice, but he just said "I have made a fool of myself and I plead guilty, and I want the case dealt with now."

He sounds like a nice guy. No faffing about and straight to the point. He got a £2 fine, which according to the internet is worth about £100 today, so relatively speaking that was quite a hefty chunk of his dosh. Poor bloke. 

And then in 1950 there was a case where 59-year-old Mary Sullivan came to court for assaulting her 22-year-old pregnant neighbour, Norah Hannon. After being found guilty, she confronted Norah in the hallways of the court building and assaulted her again in front of everyone, knocking the poor girl unconscious! Needless to say, Mary appeared in this court again for this fresh new assault. She was sentenced to 28 days in prison, and fell to the ground when she recieved her sentence. Like, what was she expecting? Physically assaulting a pregnant woman, and then doing it a second time at the court house in front of everyone who had already found her guilty the first time. She's lucky all she got is 28 days.

 

 

It's worth skipping ahead just a bit to show some concept art for what is planned for this area. Someone wants to make this into a pretty gorgeous bar. 

 

(Concept art not mine, obviously)

 

It actually looks quite promising. It would actually be pretty cool to come here in the future for legitimate reasons and reminisce over this mild trespass over what I assume will be an overly expensive rum and coke.

 

I'm loving the light-up sign that tells us when court is in session. This hasn't been on for some time. 

 

The majority of the court rooms have been stripped out, which is pretty frustrating. Fortunately this wouldn't be the case across the entire building.

 

Now, if I remember rightly, this is Court 3, and it has ties to a fairly notorious crime that was considered one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in British history.

In May 1949, a 22-year-old chap called Donald Johnson appeared here, charged with being an accessory in the famous Cameo Cinema murders. These murders had really taken the media by storm, leading to the biggest manhunt the city had ever seen after the cinemas manager and deputy manager had been shot dead during a botched robbery. The shooter, a masked intruder, had made a speedy getaway empty handed. It was found that the cinemas telephone wires had been cut, indicating that some degree of planning had gone into the whole thing. Whoever had done this was a clever little sod. 

Which is why nobody thought petty robber Donald Johnson could possibly be the culprit. He comes across quite a bit dim. He claimed to know who the shooter was, and also claimed that he had helped dispose of the murder weapon. But it was largely believed that he was just pretending to have information in order to trade it for bail on a robbery that he was due to face trial for. Much to his surprise, the police told him they'd flat-out drop the robbery charges altogether if he gave them any information on the Cameo murders, but Donald was just faffing about, claiming that he couldn't outright name the shooter because he'd made a religious oath, but if the police gave him a few days he could find the man for them and bring him in. This never happened. He also refused to sign any statements about what he claimed to know, and it soon became apparent that he was wasting their time. Having made a religious oath, the police tried coercing him to reveal the shooter by getting a priest to forgive him for breaking that oath. But Donald got on his knees before the priest and spotted navy blue police trousers under his cassock so knew they were having him on. 

Police were just getting more and more frustrated. The information he promised wasn't coming, but he seemed to know enough about the case, like what kind of gun was used, so having lost their patience, they arrested him for being an accessory to the crime.

He came to court right here in this room, where he produced a signed statement claiming that in spite of what the police were saying, he knew absolutely nothing of the Cameo murders and had made it all up to get his robbery charges dropped. 

The court decided that Donald's earlier statements of information, unsigned, were inadmissible and that the police had obtained it by threats and inducement. Therefore he could not be tried as an accessory.

The police were understandably pretty furious.

 

Sadly the Cameo murders would go on to become one of the most notorious miscarriages of justice in all of British history when Charles Connolly and George Kelly, who didn't even know each other, were arrested for the murder under the flimsiest of evidence, simply that a prostitute and her pimp claimed to have heard the two men talking about the murder in a pub, a meeting that never took place and both had strong alibis for. I'm guessing at this point, with it being such a high profile case, the police had to get someone just to calm down the public who knew a murderer was out there somewhere. George Kelly was wrongfully hanged for the murder, protesting to the end that he didn't do it. Charles Connolly was wrongfully imprisoned until 1957, but he went on to have a good life. He died in 1997, claiming his innocence right up until the end. It was only in 2001 that the cases were re-examined and the convictions post-humorously dropped, 53 years too late to save the wrongfully convicted mans life. The 2001 re-investigation had found a concealed statement given to detectives by a prosecution witness that claimed Donald Johnson had admitted to the murder, but this was not given to the defence at the time.

 

Donald Johnson had seemingly committed the murder, and then gone to the police claiming that he had information on the murder, and then faffed about so spectacularly that he looked like he was just some idiotic boob, lying about knowing stuff to have his earlier robbery charges dropped. He then stood in this very court room where any connection between him and the murder was firmly dismissed due to him clearly being pressured by frustrated police who he had been provoking for weeks with false promises of information. There was no way he'd ever be a suspect now. He was just a petty thief trying to piggyback off the murder to get his robbery charges dropped. An evil genius if ever there was one. He lived until 1988.

It's awful but I have to admit, I am kinda impressed by his ingenuity.

 

After this mess we found a rather pristine court room.

Check it out! It's gorgeous!

 

According to what I've read about proposed plans for the building, this room is to be retained as it is. The design statement says "Interesting uses will need to be found in order for the room to be of useful nature." 

And I just love that. In spite of the developers having no idea what this room could be used for, they're still saying "It's too important to lose. We'll just have to find something to do with it."

 

One notable trial in this court house was of Adam Horovitz of the Beastie Boys in 1987. Apparently during their tour, a show that included dancers in cages and a 20-foot hydraulic penis, they came on stage and opened with the line "Fuck you, Liverpool." 

 

Perhaps that kind of banter would go down well somewhere like Birmingham where everyone's like "Hah, the yanks can't pronounce Bimingham. Where the hell is Berming-HAM?," but the scousers were having none of it and began hurling beer cans onto the stage. Adam Horovitz nipped backstage and emerged with a fucking baseball bat and started batting the thrown beer cans back at the audience, one of which struck a young girl in the face. The crowd went into a frenzy. According to people who were there at the time, chairs were also being hurled and lights were getting smashed. Some witnesses claim the Beastie Boys roadies also grabbed baseball bats and entered the audience to attempt some form of crowd control. It was a full-on riot, and the Beastie Boys had to flee, while the audience chanted "We tamed the Beastie Boys," before they were all tear gassed by the police. It's not my genre and the concert was only twelve minutes long, but fuck it, tickets were only £5.50 so if I ever get my hands on a time machine, I'm going there.

 

Due to the facial injuries sustained by the young girl, Adam Horovitz was charged with assault, and the radio broadcast at the time reported "the Beasties tough guy spent several hours crying in the police station."

 

Here's a photo of him outside this court building, looking rather sorry for himself with his solicitor. 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

But there are people who nipped to the loo right before the concert started, and noticed that the merch stall had been cleared away, and also noticed that when the riot did break out, the exits were conveniently open for people to escape through, which seems to hint that it was all a bit planned. Perhaps it was a publicity thing that got out of control. I mean, it worked. They were pretty huge. MP Harry Greenway tried to get them banned from the UK and everything, which (with a bit of a nip over to a genre that I do like) happened to Alice Cooper in the 1970s after the chicken incident, and only made him more popular.  He's still releasing albums at 71. Perhaps this riot was meant to be the Beastie Boys chicken incident. 

Alas, it was not.

 

There's another court room, similarly pristine, which I absolutely fell in love with. This one is my favourite.

 

 

Think how many lives have been affected or flat-out ruined in this room.

 

I love that there's still a little legal book here, after all these years.

But now for the best part of any abandoned building, the toilets!

Still in better condition than the toilets in some pubs and clubs... which is what I say excessively on every blog where the toilets are absolutely horrific, to the point that local pub owners are actually getting in touch to make sure I'm not referring to them. 

But in this case, the toilets actually are pretty swanky. Seriously, aren't these the best toilets I've ever had on here? This is the kind of toilet I'd actually feel bad taking a shit in, not least because these are actually the ladies. If they were mine, they'd have to be ornamental. I'd just go do my business at Asda or something.

 

Even the light switch is just so unnecessarily shiny and posh. I had to make sure to get the toilet reflected in it just to remind everyone that this is indeed the shitter.

 

 

The urinal even has its own cubicle! That's amazing!

 

But enough of the toilets. This court house has holding cells!

 

So apparently the cells had capacity for about seventy defendants, and there are two original Victorian cells somewhere. This fact alone makes me realise that we've missed a bunch. I think they may be in the cellar or something.

 

 

A nice little sign warning people not to damage anything in the cell. Not that there's much to damage here.

 

The cells are pretty bleak. It's almost as if they don't want criminals to enjoy their stay.

 

Time to check out the upstairs!

 

 

In 2013 the courts were revealed to be the epicenter of a massive scandal. A corrupt staff member, David Kelly, was revealed to have been wiping points from peoples driving licenses, charging £100 per point. Over six years he pocketed thousands of pounds from bad drivers, including reformed gangster Stephen French and the former Boxing champion Lee Siner. He operated out of this court house, and it was something of an open secret in the local pubs. Middle men would take the money, so none of these clients knew who in the court house was doing the dirty work and therefore couldn't snitch if they got found out.

David Kelly had worked for the court for 21 years, but he was heavily in debt to the point that he had his salary paid into his sons bank account to avoid charges. He seemingly started running this side hustle in 2004, and almost got caught in 2008, whereupon he actually changed his handwriting so that he could continue filling out the relevant forms to get shit done. He was eventually caught because he started doing other courts paperwork where he had no authority, and that raised a few eyebrows. Here's a picture of him going to his trial.

 

(Photo not mine, obviously)

 

From what I can tell, his peers were pretty furious. Law folk hate having someone in their midst making a mockery of what they do. I guess one bad apple makes people question the entire apple tree. It's certainly that way with the police. 

 

 

Upstairs has some pretty nifty offices and meeting rooms. I'm guessing one of these was the judges lounge. The lucky bastards. I bet it looked pretty awesome.

 

In 2007 it was announced that this court would close and be replaced by a purpose-built set of courts elsewhere, which is odd wording because it implies that this building is inadequate because it isn't purpose built, despite the fact that it very much is. 

But Lord Chief Justice of England and Wales, Thomas of Cwngiedd, said that it wasn't fit for purpose, while Thomas Handley, the director of exchange chambers, said that they'd seen better times, so I guess maybe it needed a little TLC.

From what I can tell, the main issue was that the city had multiple court buildings for different types of cases, whereas the new proposals were to get it all under one roof, and have it digital and paperless to bring it into the 21st Century. The article I read said that it will be a court that the city can be proud of. Again, this is weird phrasing. I know a few people from this city, and I hear positive things all the time, like "I like it here because it has a great night life," and "I like it here because the people are actually really friendly." Nobody has ever said "This is a great city, and I love it because it has a kickass magistrates court." 

Although I'm sure Lee Siner and a plethora of other bad drivers may have said something along those lines at some point.

 

So this court house finally closed in 2015 and it has remained unused ever since. There were plans to use it for police dog training but these were dropped, and in 2018 there were plans to build a hotel, but again these were dropped, possibly due to the pandemic. And then in 2021, proposals for 68 student flats were put forward, with a bar on the ground floor and a function room in the judges lounge. The main court room was to be retained for guest lectures for students. 

So far none of this has happened, but this year there have been new hotel propositions, with promises of 91 bedrooms, a garden lounge, a gym and a sauna. It all sounds very ambitious, but I would love to see it take off.

 

 

There are loads of law books still up here. 

 

 

But as is often the case, the higher up the building, the bleaker it gets. There's not much else to see here, besides a few signs on doors. 

 

 

And finally out there on the rooftop is a miserable looking seagull, wondering who the fuck we are and if we've brought snacks. 

Alas, we had not.

That's all I have on this magistrates court. It was a rather stellar adventure, which we completed despite the fact that we shared the building with a very beefy security guy who was seemingly oblivious to our intrusion throughout. I can't imagine this place will stay accessible for long, because clearly something is being done with it. Just look at all the builder clutter. Developers are circling this thing like vultures. And honestly, that's great. I would love to see this place fixed up. I want to come back here and drink at the bar. As much as I love urbex, it's lovely to see a place get brought back to life. Why waste a perfectly good building?

My next blog will be a synagogue, which I've never done before, and then on my local blog I think I'll be annoying all the right people with an abandoned house. That should be okay. 

In the meantime you can (in theory) keep up with blog updates by following me on Instagram, Threads, Vero, Reddit, Facebook, and I'm on Twitter too for some reason. I'm sort of like the band on the Titanic, playing as the ship sinks.

Thanks for reading!