Shropshire Star comment: Courts are meant to be secure
Occasionally a case hits the headlines of somebody pulling a gun in court, an act which creates an immediate crisis.
Just because those incidents we read about happen in other countries does not mean that they cannot happen here. The complacent idea that such things "only happen in America" is liable to be tragically disproved unless the eminently foreseeable is tackled by measures to ensure it is entirely preventable.
The nightmare scenario would be somebody, or perhaps a team, successfully smuggling weapons into a courtroom with the aim of threatening staff and securing the escape of the accused.
The frightening incidence of stabbings on Britain's streets which has claimed such a terrible toll points to a tide of gang warfare the like of which has never been seen before, often fuelled and sustained by turf wars among drugs barons.
They carry knives routinely, and they stop at nothing, and that attitude would surely extend to springing gangland godfathers from the clutches of justice if they were able to do so.
There have in the past been rare escapes from Shropshire courts, generally by the unsophisticated method of legging it from the dock, although one defendant threw himself through a window in the days when sittings were held at Shrewsbury's historic old market hall.
These days security is tighter, and figures show that a range of tools and sharp implements, as well as alcoholic drinks, have been seized from people entering courts in Shropshire and Mid Wales.
The impression is that in most cases, perhaps the overwhelming majority of cases, there is no sinister intent, with tools like hammers and screwdrivers among those items confiscated.
However – and this applies to terrorism equally – the price of safety is constant vigilance and watertight systems which do not assume all will be well.
It is not just a precaution against potential escape attempts. In highly charged cases a defendant may have attracted an intense amount of public hatred and loathing, with the upshot that there are those who feel if they were able to attack them in court they would be administering some sort of "people's justice."
Or, if there was a court case centred around a fight between rival gangs, those rivalries would be reflected among the respective "supporters" in the public gallery, and having weapons available in those circumstances doesn't bear thinking about.
It is a sad sign of the times that these checks are necessary at our courts. But ensuring they are safe environments for all concerned, and that includes staff, defendants, lawyers, jurors, and judges, is of paramount importance.
