Southend Court House is a

Crown Court The Crown Court is the criminal trial court, court of first instance in England and Wales responsible for hearing all indictable offences, some Hybrid offence, either way offences and appeals of the decisions of magistrates' courts. It is ...

venue which deals with criminal cases, as well as a County Court venue, which deals with civil cases, in Victoria Avenue,

Southend-on-Sea Southend-on-Sea (), commonly referred to as Southend (), is a coastal city and unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area with Borough status in the United Kingdom, borough status in south-eastern Essex, England. It lies on the nor ...

, England. Located immediately to the south of Southend Civic Centre, it is also the venue for

magistrates' court A magistrates' court is a lower court where, in several Jurisdiction (area), jurisdictions, all criminal proceedings start. Also some civil matters may be dealt with here, such as family proceedings. Courts * Magistrates' court (England and Wales) ...

hearings.

History

Until the mid-1960s, the main venue for criminal court hearings in Southend-on-Sea was a courthouse on Alexandra Street. It was first built there for the

petty session Courts of petty session, established from around the 1730s, were local courts consisting of magistrates, held for each petty sessional division (usually based on the county divisions known as hundreds) in England, Wales, and Ireland. The session ...

hearings in 1883, rebuilt in the early 20th century, and then re-built again in 1924. It continued to serve the borough for much of the 20th century. However, as the number of court cases in Southend grew, it became necessary to commission a more modern courthouse. Southend Corporation planned a new a Civic Centre which would encompass a new police station, the courthouse, council offices and chamber, a new

College A college (Latin: ''collegium'') may be a tertiary educational institution (sometimes awarding degrees), part of a collegiate university, an institution offering vocational education, a further education institution, or a secondary sc ...

and a

Library A library is a collection of Book, books, and possibly other Document, materials and Media (communication), media, that is accessible for use by its members and members of allied institutions. Libraries provide physical (hard copies) or electron ...

on a site first purchased by the council in 1919 for a further education college, but had been reallocated as a town hall site in 1934. The planned fire station for the site was dropped and it built in Sutton Road. The new building was designed by the borough architect, Patrick Burridge, in the

Modernist style Modern architecture, also called modernist architecture, or the modern movement, is an architectural movement and style that was prominent in the 20th century, between the earlier Art Deco and later postmodern movements. Modern architecture wa ...

, built in concrete and glass and was completed in 1966. The design involved an asymmetrical main frontage of 30 bays facing onto Victoria Avenue. On the left of the main frontage, there was a wide opening of 12 bays leading to an inner courtyard and a glass doorway beyond. The building was fenestrated by a series of small square

casement window A casement window is a window that is attached to its frame by one or more hinges at the side. They are used singly or in pairs within a common frame, in which case they are hinged on the outside. Casement windows are often held open using a c ...

s on both floors. Internally, the building was laid out to accommodate two courtrooms. Following the implementation of the

Courts Act 1971 The Courts Act 1971The citation of this act by this short title is authorised bsection 59(1)of this act. (c. 23) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, the purpose of which was to reform and modernise the courts system of England and ...

, the courthouse became the venue for hearings of the newly designated Southend Crown Court. The borough council commissioned a bronze sculpture entitled "Leda and the Swan" which was designed by Lucette Cartwright. It was initially placed outside the courthouse but when councillors decided to relocate the sculpture to the civic square there was a backlash from protestors who objected to the sexual nature of the artist's work which depicted the thunder god,

Zeus Zeus (, ) is the chief deity of the List of Greek deities, Greek pantheon. He is a sky father, sky and thunder god in ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, who rules as king of the gods on Mount Olympus. Zeus is the child ...

, in the form of a swan, raping a woman. The sculpture was initially moved to the courtyard of the Palace Theatre in

Westcliff-on-Sea Westcliff-on-Sea (previously known as Milton, often abbreviated to Westcliff, and in the past spelt as Westcliffe-on-Sea) is a suburb of the city of Southend-on-Sea, located within the ceremonial county of Essex, England. It is on the north sh ...

and but it was later relocated to the mayor's residence where it was placed safely out of view. Notable court cases have included the trial and conviction of Rick Kerry, in June 2013, for robbery. He leapt from the dock and escaped from the courthouse immediately after sentencing but was later re-captured.

References

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External links

Court information
Crown Court buildings Government buildings completed in 1966 Buildings and structures in Southend-on-Sea Court buildings in England