THE Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine of Lairg, has become directly involved in the future of Devizes magistrates court.

His department has responded after a question was put to him by Steve McMahon, secretary of the Wiltshire branch of the Magistrates Association, at the recent annual meeting of the national organisation in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Mr McMahon said: "The Wiltshire branch is very concerned about the action taken to remove all custody cases from the three smaller courts in Wiltshire (Devizes, Trowbridge and Salisbury) because of possible Human Rights Act violations under Article 3.

"This has happened since the Magistrates Courts Committee received a strong recommendation from the HM Magistrates Courts Inspectorate that courts should not continue to be used for custody cases after October 2 if current access and custody arrangements remained in place.

"The impact on the level of work at the affected courts has been considerable and currently the remaining work does not give magistrates the experience of the full range of cases."

Cases which may result in a jail sentence are transferred to Chippenham Magistrates Court which has facilities for prisoners to be taken into court out of sight of the public.

The Lord Chancellor replied he had already received information about the concerns and would give the matter his urgent attention.

Following that, Wiltshire Magistrates Courts Committee received a letter from Mark Ormerod, Director of the Criminal Justice Directorate, saying that safety and security were the main reasons the three courts could not deal with custody cases and the action would have been taken even without the Human Rights Act.

He added that grants were available for the upgrading of safety and security but yesterday's meeting of the Wiltshire Magistrates Courts Committee was told that, even with grant aid, it was still not clear whether it was worth spending the money at the three courthouses.

A consultation document on court accommodation in 2001 will shortly be distributed and the results of the consultation will be considered at the committee's next meeting on January 10.