The number of defendants found guilty at all courts and proceeded against for drug-related offences at Easington magistrates court and North Durham magistrates court for the years 2000 to 2006 can be found in the following table. In 2002, Easington magistrates court was amalgamated with Chester-le-street, Derwentside and Durham magistrates courts to make up North Durham magistrates court.
It is not possible to identify those offenders in the Easington constituency, as the data is not collected at this level of detail.
Easington magistrates court North Durham magistrates court Proceeded against Found guilty Proceeded against Found guilty 2000 122 80 5— 5— 2001 151 147 5— 5— 2002 0 6 335 279 2003 5— 5— 314 288 2004 5— 5— 206 195 2005 5— 5— 242 221 2006 5— 5— 187 184 1 These data are provided on the principal offence basis. 2 Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from large administrative data systems generated by the police forces and courts. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when those data are used. 3 It is not possible to identify those prosecutions or convictions for other offences, e.g. murder, or manslaughter, which were due to drug-related offences as the circumstances surrounding offences are not held centrally. 4 The found guilty column may exceed those proceeded against, as it may be the case that the proceedings in the magistrates court took place in the preceding year and they were found guilty at the Crown court in the following year, or the defendants was found guilty for a different offence to the original offence proceeded against. It is also possible that some of those proceeded against were transferred to North Durham upon amalgamation of the four magistrates courts per caveat. 5 In 2002 Easington magistrates court was amalgamated with the following three other magistrates courts to make up North Durham magistrates court: Chester le Street, Derwentside, and Durham. Source: Court proceedings database held by RDS Office for Criminal Justice Reform—Ministry of Justice.