Court Clerk
Cambridge Crown Court clerk Carl Poole's been banishing stereotypes since childhood.
At 16, while his schoolmates were busy playing computer games, Carl spent his evenings volunteering for community initiatives in his hometown of Newmarket.
His influential work as a founding member of his local Neighbourhood Watch earned him praise from the Crimestoppers charity, features on television and interest from the Home Office.
Carl says: “Neighbourhood Watch is not about curtain twitching – it’s about raising awareness of crime prevention and building communities.”
Early commitment to justice
Carl’s early interest in criminal justice was furthered as vice chairman of the Crime Prevention Panel, where he represented Neighbourhood Watch at a national level and participated in the Lord Chief Justice’s Woolf Symposium.
In 2002 he was asked to sit on the Home Office’s Community Justice Working Party, chaired by Baroness Scotland QC. At the age of 20, Carl founded the Residents’ Forum to champion partnership working.
His early commitment to civic duty has well prepared him for a career in Her Majesty’s Court Service (HMCS).
Carl says: “I was brought up with a strong sense of the value of public service. As a young adult I learned a lot about the public sector, management and diplomatic negotiation. It’s fundamental to the role I have now. Anything can be thrown at you in a courtroom or busy Crown Court office.”
An unexpected career choice
Despite his early involvement in crime prevention, Carl didn’t seriously consider a legal career until he was at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, studying a combined honours degree in Law and Business Studies.
“My tutor said to me, ‘You’re studying law because you’re interested in it as a subject. You don’t have a burning ambition to go into private practise. You’ve also got a great skill and interest in business management. Why not combine all those interests?’”
The tutor then suggested a career within the administration of justice.
“I thought, what an interesting idea. I hadn’t really thought about how the courts were run. You don’t think about what happens behind the scenes, do you?”
A promising start
Carl was named Law Student of the Year in 2000 and graduated from Anglia Ruskin with combined honours the following year, joining the then Courts Service in 2002.
He kick started his career as a civil case worker at Hertford County Court, responsible for post judgement work, which included dealing with bailiffs as they enforced judgements and executed warrants.
Carl says: “It was good to start off at Hertford as it’s a small court. You had immediate access to the judge and other colleagues, meaning I absorbed all sorts of knowledge, which was a great grounding.”
Carl’s time was divided between Hertford and London, where he had intensive training at the Royal Courts of Justice. After a year, he transferred to Cambridge County Court, a much busier workplace with around 20 staff, four district judges and two circuit judges.
Bankruptcy
For the first time, Carl dealt with bankruptcy cases and was tasked with overseeing the implementation of the Enterprise Act. It was an eye-opening experience, proving that “anybody could fall foul of their finances”, regardless of their background.
Carl says: “I had some people bursting into tears, who stormed out of the room and were petrified. There were people who thought it was below them to step in the door and were harbouring their own prejudices about the system, assuming we’d look down on them. Of course you’d empathise with people if that was what they needed but people would be dealt with as individuals. That said, you had to remain personally detached to be professional.”
Declaring bankruptcy can be a humiliating experience - but clients appreciate the professional treatment they get in the courts, Carl says.
“I’d often have people thank me afterwards and express how helpful it was to be dealt with in that way. The work there made me think more about those that we serve.”
Carl’s commitment to serving the public was reflected in his voluntary work with the City Churches group and the Citizen’s Advice Bureau, charities helping people with financial hardship and debt management. Carl held a number of seminars with their advisors to inform them on how to support their clients through the court process.
Breaking down barriers
In 2005 Carl went back to uni – to collect Anglia Ruskin’s prestigious Graduate of the Year award, recognising his outstanding contribution to public service.
This was largely due to his work in promoting court careers and overseeing work experience students. He and his colleagues visited schools and college as part of the Courts and Communities Initiative. They held mock trials and tried to demystify the Criminal Justice System.
Carl says: “We are thought of as working behind closed doors but nothing could be further from the truth – almost all court hearings are open to the public. I wanted to break down the barriers and stereotypes that exist about the court.”
During visits to schools, Carl would tell students they could become tomorrow’s judges, lawyers, court officials, family or care workers.
“I wanted them to relate to it so it wasn’t about stern people with dead ferrets on their heads, telling people what to do, but rather about the troubles and triumphs of everyday life.”
Cambridge Crown Court
Since 2005, Carl has been working as a court clerk and office manager at Cambridge Crown Court. Court clerks working at magistrates’ courts are legal advisers to lay magistrates but the role in Crown courts is more about facilitating correct procedure – taking verdicts, enrolling jurors and making sure court orders are carried out.
Carl says: “It’s a key role. The clerk is responsible for the efficient and effective running of the court room and must ensure the court record is accurate. I take the role very seriously and I expect all the staff here to do the same. We must never lose sight of the function we perform and the faith our customers, colleagues and judges place in us.”
Working in a new, purpose-built building, Carl joined the court when a new computer system, Xhibit, was being introduced. The revolutionary technology allows court proceedings to be recorded electronically, in real time, and for information to be exchanged between justice staff via a secure internet connection.
Carl says there was a lot to take in but being mentored by a very experienced colleague gave him a solid foundation.
“One thing about Cambridge is the team ethos. It’s a relatively small staff and that enables a team ethos to exist.”
Huntingdon Combined Courts
In 2005 Carl helped advise on the implementation of Huntingdon Courts project, the first tri-jurisdictional justice centre in England and Wales.
The building was opened in late 2007, housing Crown, Magistrates’ and County Courts under one roof. The tri-discipline system brings new challenges for staff, who have to be prepared to deal with a huge range of clients.
Carl says: “I was called upon as someone who had recent experience of both criminal and civil work. I was able to give an operational perspective on how I felt a modern court should run. It was clear Huntingdon was going to be different.”
When Carl was asked to look at staffing models, the concept of court support officers featured – a way of “taking the very best of a traditional usher’s role together with a supportive administrative function.”
The objective was to make staff flexible so they could better serve the varied customer using the courts, Carl says.
“Staff appreciate the different skills required in a domestic violence case, a theft matter or if you’re dealing with vulnerable children in a family matter.”
High standards
For some time Carl served as the youngest ever member of the District Committee of the Standards Board of England, an independent disciplinary hearing panel and advisory body, set up to promote high ethics for public officials.
Carl says: “The administration of justice affects everybody. We are dealing with real lives, real people. That should be performed in the most efficient way. We can’t be superior about it all.”
Despite striving to make the court system more relevant to a changing society, Carl doesn’t believe in getting rid of its formality and traditions.
“Through various visits I have met so many people from home and abroad. The respect they have for our system is always expressed, loud and clear. That said, the courts will always evolve and have to evolve because they are here to serve the community. Communities always evolve.”
As a court clerk, Carl deals with a huge range of people and says diplomacy is an essential aspect of his job.
“You do get regulars. Equally you get people who are beside themselves because they’ve been thrown into an environment that is totally alien to them. You have to remain unbiased and completely neutral whilst appreciating those anxieties.”
Culture change
HMCS has gone through a process of “complete culture change” in recent years, Carl says.
“Whether it’s about dealing with vulnerable witnesses or using external television links to bring in witnesses from abroad, all these things have to happen because society moves on. The customer revolution has happened. The customer expects more.”
Carl strongly believes that public services should be no different from private industry in that respect.
“In the courts, the customer is defined broadly – and rightly so. We should not be ashamed to say we have customers and have to deliver a service of excellence to them all. We have to take pride in the fact that we are administrators.”
Anyone considering a career at Her Majesty’s Court Service should be committed to customer service, he says.
“Work-life balance has to take place. You have to be detached but have a sense of humour. You’ve got to have a professional façade but be yourself. It’s not about stuffy individuals. We’re real people… serving real people.”