Stratford Magistrates' Court stands on the High Street, a few minutes' walk from Westfield, and it has grown busier as the magistrates' courts in neighbouring boroughs closed. Most criminal cases from Newham start there, from a first appearance after a night in the cells to a summary trial, and the ones the magistrates cannot deal with are sent to Snaresbrook Crown Court in Wanstead. Criminal law solicitors in Newham are in both buildings every week.
The case starts earlier, in the custody suite at Forest Gate police station or wherever else the arrest leads. Anyone held there, or asked to come in for a voluntary interview, is entitled to free legal advice regardless of income, and a solicitor who sees the disclosure before the interview can change the outcome: no comment or a prepared statement where the evidence is thin, an early admission and a caution where it is not. The duty solicitor scheme covers the borough around the clock, and local firms can usually find a solicitor who speaks the client's language rather than relying on an interpreter at every stage.
The borough's caseload has its own shape: shoplifting and theft at Westfield, drug supply and knife offences, violence connected to the night-time economy around Stratford, domestic abuse, driving offences on the A13 and the North Circular, and the document, benefit and housing fraud prosecutions that follow from a large and mobile population. Young defendants go through the youth court, with its different rules.
Legal aid is available for most defendants, means-tested in the magistrates' court; privately funded clients should ask for a fixed fee for each stage, and motoring work is often priced that way.
The criminal defence firms serving Newham are listed below, verified firms first. Useful reading: what criminal law involves, the general criminal law solicitors page, free legal help and who qualifies and the capital-wide criminal law solicitors in London listing.
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