Case closed as historic London court bows out

LONDON - Oscar Wilde, Augusto Pinochet and London gangsters the Kray brothers have one thing in common - they have all appeared at the city's Bow Street Magistrate's Court.

But on Friday the flow of drunks, murderers, master criminals and political refugees through the wood-panelled court comes to an end as it closes its doors forever.

Nestling behind the Theatre Royal in Covent Garden, Bow Street will no longer have a court after almost 300 years as the building has been sold to a hotel group, with judicial business transferred to another London court.

Literary icon Oscar Wilde initially appeared in Court One on April 6, 1895, charged with homosexuality and American-born wife killer Doctor Hawley Harvey Crippen sat in the same dock 15 years later.

The Kray brothers - Ronald, Reginald and Charles - all appeared there on May 17, 1968, and Pinochet faced magistrates there 30 years later.

Another notorious notable to have passed through the Bow Street portals are Nazi propagandist William Joyce - also known as Lord Haw-Haw.

"Since 1735 there has been a court in Bow Street either here or across the road. All life has passed through," chief magistrate Tim Workman said.

On any given day Workman may deal with a trail of humanity from destitute drunks to petty criminals, interspersed with extradition requests from Russia and alleged terrorists charged with plotting mass murder.

Yet nothing appears to faze him as he ploughs through each case, moving seamlessly in one busy day from a string of unlicensed taxi drivers to a man charged under anti-terrorism laws with conspiracy to murder using poison or explosives.

"If you stop to think about it, it is a bit extraordinary isn't it," he said.

The court will transfer to the Horseferry Road court from Monday, although that too saddens Workman.

"Bow Street is old and has character. Horseferry Road is modern and plastic," he said.

- REUTERS