SENIOR solicitor and defence lawyer James Baird Murray says unnecessary new laws do nothing to deter criminals or prevent them reoffending in the future.

Mr Baird Murray, who started out as an articled clerk with Colchester law firm Ellison & Co in 1954 and celebrated his 75th birthday with colleagues at Fisher Jones Greenwood, recently, said: “I think a lot of it has been led by the politicians.

“I don’t think Mr Average spends his time worrying about whether we ought to have another section to the Public Order Act.

“I think it should be left to the judges to sort it out.”

Mr Baird Murray worked for the Crown Prosecution Service in its infancy in the Eighties and Nineties before becoming a defence solicitor in 2002.

He said judges and magistrates were no longer able to use their discretion.

“More and more often sentencing is done by prescription,” he said. “Many magistrates are given no discretion at all.

“Even crown court judges are obliged to put people on the Sex Offenders’ Register or extended licences for the rest of their lives.

“We do see, unfortunately, because of the guidelines, people being set up to fail.

“There are a few judges around who will use their discretion. They are seen as mavericks, but I don’t think they are.

“They are able to see from their experience how it is that you can set someone up to fail.

“Asbos, or sentences like that, are a way of getting people locked up.

“That’s why there are twice as many people in prison these days, because we appear to have an insatiable appetite to lock each other up, which has been allowed to grow and should have been snuffed out ages ago.

“It’s a perfectly understandable and reasonable sensation, ‘I want payback on this’, but too often revenge is represented as justice.”

He claimed police targeted known offenders in Colchester to the extent of “prodding“ them into reoffending.

Mr Baird Murray said: “I can understand the police need to target certain people and I don’t see anything the matter with recognising that does happen.

“I’m afraid it’s just a fact of life.However, I think the police could be guilty of prodding people in a way that’s inevitably going to lead to them doing something silly, which they would not have done had they not been so prodded.”

Mr Baird Murray, said he felt the Government needed to do more to reform sentencing.

He said: “It’s difficult. How can a Government stand up and say we are now going to spend a large amount of money on making people better behaved by giving them the support they need – can you imagine the reaction?

“Obviously if they don’t do that, they need to spend money on bigger prisons, which goes back to this insatiable appetite for locking people up.

“I think a lot more needs to be done and the probation service is thoroughly overworked at the moment. Morale there is very low.

“The regulation we suffer in our profession is overwhelming and there always has been too much red tape.”

Mr Baird Murray, who has practised in north-east Essex for most of his working life, said he believed more also needed to be done to tackle Colchester’s late night drinking culture.

He continued: “It has been, until very recently, a pleasant town to live in. It has in recent years suffered the same fate as many towns of similar size.

“We all know why – it’s just horrid at night. If you take a stroll up the High Street in the evening at this time of year, you have to step over puddles of vomit and blood. It can be absolutely dreadful.

“I see it not in the flesh, but looking at the CCTV in court.

“It’s partly to do with a burgeoning population who were not born and brought up here and sadly know no better.

“Underneath it all there is the Colchester that has still got a thriving arts and academic scenes, and there is no lack of that to turn to if you want.”