Leicester Law Courts

Judicial building in Leicester, England

Leicester Law Courts

Leicester Law Courts

Location| Wellington Street, Leicester
Coordinates| 52°37′48″N 1°07′38″W﻿ / ﻿52.6300°N 1.1272°W﻿ / 52.6300; -1.1272
Built| 1981
Architect| Property Services Agency
Architectural style(s)| Modernist style

Shown in Leicestershire

The Leicestershire Law Courts is a Crown Court venue, which deals with criminal cases, as well as a County Court venue, which deals with civil cases, in Wellington Street, Leicester, England.

## History

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Until the early 1980s, criminal court hearings were held in the Great Hall at Leicester Castle.[1] However, as the number of court cases in Leicester grew, it became necessary to commission a more substantial courthouse for criminal court hearings. The site selected by the Lord Chancellor's Department had accommodated a series of rows of terraced housing (Slawson Street, Ashwell Street and Elton Street) before the area was cleared.[2]

The new building was designed by the Property Services Agency in the Modernist style, built in red brick at a cost of £4.4 million,[3] and was opened in March 1981.[4][5] Originally established to deal with Crown Court hearings only, it was extended to accommodate the County Court hearings as well in the early 1990s.[6] The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage facing onto Wellington Street. The left hand section was formed by a two-storey block fenestrated by tall casement windows on the ground floor and by small square windows on the first floor. The central section, which was recessed, was formed by a flight of steps leading up to a glass door giving access to a full-height atrium with a steel-framed pediment, which projected forward. The right hand section, which projected forward and was fenestrated in a similar style to the left hand section, was formed by two separate blocks, the one on the left being taller than the one on the right. Internally, the building was laid out to accommodate ten courtrooms.[7]

Notable cases have included the trial and conviction of the children's home manager, Frank Beck, in November 1991, for sexual and physical assaults against more than one hundred children in his care,[8][9] the trial and conviction of the spree killer, Philip Smith, in July 2001, for the murders of three women in Birmingham,[10][11] and the trial and conviction of four men, in March 2005, for the murder of two teenage girls, Charlene Ellis and Letisha Shakespeare, with a machine pistol in Aston, Birmingham.[12][13]

## References

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1. ^ "The Great Hall". Heritage Gateway. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
2. ^ "Ordnance Survey Map". 1914. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
3. ^ "Capital Building Programme". Hansard. 26 January 1996. Retrieved 12 March 2023.
4. ^ Mulcahy, Linda; Rowden, Emma (2019). The Democratic Courthouse: A Modern History of Design, Due Process and Dignity. Taylor and Francis. p. 120\. ISBN 978-0429558689. "While technically the build was completed in August 1980, Leicester did not open its doors until March 1981."
5. ^ "Law Courts and Courtrooms 1: The Buildings of the Criminal Law". Historic England. 1 August 2016. p. 16. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
6. ^ "Justice of the Peace & Local Government Law". Justice of the Peace Limited. 1994. p. 622. Retrieved 7 February 2023. "The new county court building on Wellington Street in Leicester, is linked to Leicester Crown Court on both the ground and first floor levels."
7. ^ "Leicester". Ministry of Justice. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
8. ^ "Head guilty". Herald Scotland. 27 November 1991. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
9. ^ "Notorious child sex offender dies in prison: The trial and conviction of Frank Beck followed Britain's biggest investigation into child abuse". The Independent. 2 June 1994. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
10. ^ "Serial killer jailed for life". The Telegraph. 17 July 2001. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
11. ^ "Did brutal killer murder before?". Worcester News. 1 June 2004. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
12. ^ "Four found guilty of new year murders". The Guardian. 18 March 2005. Retrieved 7 February 2023.
13. ^ "Aston shootings 20 years on as four killers languish in jail two decades later". Birmingham Live. 29 December 2022. Retrieved 7 February 2023.

## External links

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* Court information