jno, that perception, that policeman do everything ethically and 'right', is the bane of justice in some courts. The best lay benches of magistrates were in the East End of London; Stratford, West Ham etc and in Westminster, Horseferry Road. The first group was of working class people who had grown up in the same streets, as it were, as the policemen. . They did not judge on the uniform and were as quick to believe or disbelieve a policeman as they were defendants or anybody else. Westminster seemed to consist of a lot of people who were awfully upper class, m'dear. They treated policemen as they would servants, with similar results.
The worst lay benches were in respectable suburbs.
The great joy of appearing before a professional magistrate was that he or she had been in practice and knew , from experience, both what police and defendants were capable of. One , in one day, reported two officers for perjury. The police were frightened of him. And I saw another stop a case and acquit because he did not believe a word of what the constable said, and do so without hearing the rest of the evidence