Teesside Crown Court
History
Until the early 1970s, apart from an aging courtroom in Middlesbrough Town Hall, there were no dedicated court facilities suitable for criminal trials in the area. This was temporarily resolved when a new law courts building (now referred to as Middlesbrough Magistrates' Court) was opened in Victoria Square in 1973. However, as the number of court cases on Teesside grew, it became necessary to commission a courthouse with dedicated facilities for both Crown Court hearings, which require courtrooms suitable for trial by jury, and for County Court hearings. The site selected by the Lord Chancellor's Department had been occupied by rows of terraced houses (Elm Street, Atkinson Street and Ash Street), which were cleared away in the late 1970s for a development which Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher's government cancelled in 1979.
The new building was designed by Napper Collerton in the Post-modernist style, built by John Laing Construction in red brick with stone dressings at a cost of £15.1 million, and was completed in 1991. The design involved a symmetrical main frontage of nine bays facing onto Central Square Gardens. The central bay featured a two-storey portico formed by columns supporting a pyramid-shaped glass roof. Inside the portico there was a glass doorway on the ground floor and a Royal coat of arms at first floor level. The first and second floors were cantilevered out over the pavement and fenestrated by tall bi-partite windows split by full-height columns supporting an entablature and, in the two bays flanking the central bay, segmental pediments. Internally, the building was laid out to accommodate twelve courtrooms.
A statue sculpted by Graham Ibbeson, entitled "Scales of Justice", which depicted two small squabbling children being held by a women, was unveiled outside the building in 1994.
Notable cases have included the trial and conviction of Robin Garbutt, in April 2011, for the murder of his wife, the Melsonby postmistress, Diane Garbutt.
References
- ^ "Major town hall project to be taken forward". National Heritage Fund. 27 March 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "Written Evidence Submitted to the Commission Under the Chairmanship of Lord Beeching". UK Parliament. 1971. p. 204.
I do not think that the work on Teesside is sufficient to justify a crown court with high court jurisdiction. Furthermore there are no Court buildings suitable for the purpose. Accordingly it will be necessary for Teesside cases to be tried at Assizes.
- ^ "A frosty reception reserved for crooks". Middlesbrough Evening Gazette. 11 August 2015. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "Proposal on the future of Northallerton Magistrates' Court" (PDF). Ministry of Justice. 18 January 2018. p. 10. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "Teesside Crown Courts". House of Commons. 18 April 1988. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "Assizes and Quarter Sessions". House of Commons. 7 May 1970. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "Ordnance Survey Map". 1914. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "The story of how Thatcher's Government scuppered plans for 3,000 jobs in Centre Square". Gazette Live. 6 August 2017. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "Capital Building Programme". Hansard. 26 January 1996. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
- ^ "Teesside Law Courts". Napper Architects. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ Mulcahy, Linda; Rowden, Emma (2019). The Democratic Courthouse: A Modern History of Design, Due Process and Dignity. Taylor and Francis. ISBN 978-0429558689.
- ^ "Teesside". Ministry of Justice. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ Ibbeson, Graham. "Scales of Justice". Art UK. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "Law Courts and Courtrooms 1: The Buildings of the Criminal Law". Historic England. p. 1. Retrieved 28 January 2023.
- ^ "Husband guilty of Melsonby postmistress murder". BBC News. 19 April 2011. Retrieved 28 January 2023.