Caversham Heights Society

TWO meetings of the society have been held since the restart in January following the coronavirus pandemic lockdowns.

After a short annual meeting, the first talk was given to a full audience of socially distanced members.

It was entitled “Behind the crime” and given by Colin Ferguson, a retired probation officer and local resident.

He started by relating the elements of the criminal justice system, including the criminals, the victims, the police, the prosecution and defence, the magistrates’ court, the crown court, sentencing and, finally, prison and probation.

The probation service is involved with all these different elements.

The people involved in the magistrates’ courts are magistrates, both stipendiary and lay, and in the crown court and high court they are judges and jury.

Also present are the clerk of the court and solicitors for both the prosecution and defence.

The magistrates, judge or jury may determine whether the accused is guilty or not.

If found guilty, the offender will be sentenced and this may be custodial. Non-custodial sentences may be a discharge, fine, probation or community service.

In the last few years, funding for the system has been cut, which has led to a longer gap between the crime and the punishment and often the victims have been ignored.

In addition to the types of court mentioned above, there are also family courts handling domestic disputes and divorce.

Accused people under the age of 17 may be processed by juvenile courts.

Probation officers are often called upon to provide reports on offenders, covering such aspects as their mental health.

Having described the system, Colin then went on to talk about his experiences as a probation officer.

He left employment in a bank and decided to retrain as a probation officer (he already helped run a youth group in Battersea).

The job changed over the years. Initially, he worked in Brixton, which at the time was full of “Windrush people” and their families who came over later to join them.

The youths were often not welcomed and more and more trouble ensued, leading eventually to the Brixton riots. Many were sent to prison, where they came into contact with the probation service.

Colin then talked about some of the people he encountered and what happened to them.

Tommy came to London to join his parents whom he had not seen for about 10 years and who had split up and did not want him. He got into trouble and went to prison, where he was again rejected.

Children were often abused in school. Danny could not read or write but eventually he went to live with somebody who helped him through his problems and eventually he made a success of his life.

Colin went round Brixton on his bicycle, so was seen and known by the local community.

The probation officer’s role was always to supervise, assist and befriend and he was involved in helping and treating drunks, drug addicts, petty shoplifters and the like, also prostitutes, many of whom were under age.

He talked about a woman of 50+ whose husband had died but she still went shopping and never paid.

She enjoyed life in prison and always wanted to go back there.

To sum up his experiences, Colin said that he had had some successes, some failures, but always felt he was doing a worthwhile job.

He was thanked for giving a very interesting and informative talk.

At the second meeting a talk entitled “Heavens above” was given by Dr Chan Malde, chief scientist at Johnson Matthey, working particularly on materials and processes in clean energy.

He started his talk with a reference to the concept of scale, concerning universes, galaxies and stars.

Distances are measured in light years, the distance light travels in a year being nearly six trillion miles.

The nearest star to the solar system is Alpha Proxima, about 4.25 light years away from Earth.

Everything we see in the sky is history. Light takes 1.28 seconds to reach us from the moon.

The universe is believed to be 93 billion light years in size and we are 13.7 billion years from the “Big Bang”.

A galaxy contains many different types of stars, typified by the Hertzspring Russell classification, which groups them by colour, temperature, size and age.

Our sun is perfect for our life on Earth.

Some stars are immense but our sun is on the small side, being only 1,400,000km across. Its temperature is 15 million degrees celsius and it effectively has a nuclear reactor at its core.

Dr Malde talked about the solar system, describing the planets and interplanetary missions, such as Viking 1 and Voyager 1 and 2.

He closed by describing the constellations we can see at night, such as Pleiades, Seven Sisters, Andromeda and many more.

This was a fascinating talk, illustrated by a wealth of superb slides, which opened our eyes to the universe around us.

The Caversham Heights Society meets every two or three weeks between September and April at Caversham Heights Methodist Church hall in Highmoor Road for a talk. Talks are on a variety of interesting subjects.

The society welcomes new members and is open to anyone. If you are interested in joining, call the membership secretary on 0118 947 9970 or visit our website, www.cavershamheights.org

Alan Bradbury