Centeniers across the Island are now expecting to deal with a collective backlog of between 250 to 300 individuals who have been warned to attend one of the hearings.
And Danny Scaife, Chef de Police for St Helier, said that his parish was hoping to begin carrying out inquiries later this month with other parishes following suit in subsequent weeks.
‘In St Helier they will be beginning at the end of June or the beginning of July and other parishes they will start in July,’ he said.
‘There are probably somewhere between 250 to 300 inquiries to deal with across all parishes – it is a reasonable number but it is not anything that we cannot cater for when we do it properly and manage it properly.
‘We should be able to clear the bulk of St Helier’s in about three weeks by running some inquiries on Saturdays to process them too.’
Mr Scaife added that officials had been working behind the scenes for three weeks to ensure inquiries could be carried out safely and that all parishes were running according to the same procedures and protocols.
‘There will be a properly sanitised, wide-open area, there will be PPE available, proper cleaning facilities, social distancing – all of the normal rules you would now expect will apply to make it a safe environment for the people attending and for the officers,’ he said.
‘We do not want the public to feel as if they are not coming into a safe environment so all proper normal compliance rules must be put in place for that to happen.’
More minor offences are dealt with at parish hall inquiries. They are also part of the process of preliminary investigation conducted by a Centenier to decide whether there is enough evidence to justify a prosecution and whether the matter should be presented before the Magistrate’s Court. The process dates back 800 years and besides charging a suspect, Centeniers can impose a number of sanctions including cautions, fines up to £200. They can order young offenders to undertake a supervision programme.
