27.6 Youth Court Procedure and the Welsh Language

Youth court procedure and hearings

From September 2026 the FLK reads youth court procedure and hearings, not procedure in the abstract. You need the courtroom realities as well as the allocation statutes.

Jurisdiction and grave crimes

The age of criminal responsibility in England and Wales is 10. Children and young people aged 10 to 17 are generally tried and sentenced in the youth court, a magistrates' court constituted for that purpose. It sits with a District Judge or with youth-panel magistrates. The public are excluded. Automatic reporting restrictions under section 49 of the Children and Young Persons Act 1933 protect identity. A parent or guardian must attend if the child is under 16, unless it would be unreasonable. A Youth Offending Team (YOT) officer is part of the hearing, not a spectator.

Hearings in the youth court include first appearance (identity, plea, bail, and jurisdiction), case-management hearings, trial, and sentence. The tone is less formal: wigs are not worn, language is plainer, and special measures are common. A guilty plea can move quickly toward a referral order. A not-guilty plea is listed for trial with the same evidence rules as adult courts, applied with youth competence and special-measures machinery.

Some cases cannot stay. Section 51A of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998 requires the youth court (or magistrates' court) to send the child to the Crown Court for homicide and for specified firearms and weapons offences that carry statutory minimum terms. Other grave crimes — typically offences for which an adult could receive 14 years' imprisonment, and certain specified sexual offences — may be sent if there is a real prospect of a sentence of long-term detention under section 250 of the Sentencing Code that would exceed youth-court powers. The youth court's own custodial ceiling is a detention and training order of 24 months. If a longer determinate sentence, or detention at His Majesty's pleasure for murder, is a real prospect, the Crown Court is the venue. Turning 18 before first appearance usually takes the case into the adult court. Turning 18 after first appearance can leave the youth court seised, with a power to remit or send in specified circumstances.

Allocation: youths jointly charged with an adult

A child jointly charged with an adult first appears in the adult magistrates' court. The default is still that the child should be tried in the youth court unless it is in the interests of justice to try them jointly. If the adult is sent to the Crown Court, the magistrates shall send the child for the related indictable offence if it is necessary in the interests of justice. If it is not necessary, the child is remitted to the youth court.

Interests-of-justice factors include the child's age and maturity, the age gap, whether the adult is a parent or an influence, whether the evidence is inseparable, delay, the likely length and formality of a Crown Court trial, and whether a fair trial of the adult can take place without the child. A 17-year-old alleged organiser of an armed robbery with an adult co-defendant is much more likely to travel to the Crown Court than an 11-year-old secondary party whose adult co-accused can be tried fairly on the papers with a severed indictment. Welfare does not automatically override a joint trial, but it is a real factor.

Sentencing: both children guidelines

Youth sentence is not a scaled-down adult exercise. The court must have regard to the principal aim of the youth justice system — to prevent offending — and to the welfare of the child. The Sentencing Council's Sentencing children and young people definitive guideline is the overarching guideline. It requires the court to consider chronological age, emotional and developmental age, background, including looked-after status, and the effect of a sentence on education and family life. Adult starting points are not copied across.

For robbery, the court must also apply the offence-specific Robbery – Sentencing children and young people guideline. The September 2026 FLK addition exists so that candidates do not stop at the overarching children guideline. The robbery guideline supplies offence features, culpability and harm, and a structured route to a type and length of sentence. The overarching guideline then supplies welfare, the full menu of youth orders, and the review of whether the sentence is the most appropriate for this child. Using one without the other is incomplete. Suggested referral-order lengths in the robbery guideline rise with seriousness (low seriousness in the region of 3 to 5 months, up to 10 to 12 months at the very high end), but the YOT may propose a contract of a different shape if that better meets the aims of the youth justice system.

Referral orders

A referral order is the main restorative disposal. The child attends a youth offender panel (two community volunteers and a YOT adviser) and agrees a contract lasting 3 to 12 months. The court sets the length; the panel sets the content.

Compulsory referral conditions (Sentencing Code) are, in outline: the offender is under 18; the offence is imprisonable; the offender pleaded guilty to the offence and any connected offence; the offender has not previously been convicted; and the court is not proposing custody, a hospital order, or an absolute or conditional discharge. Where those conditions are met, the court must make a referral order. Discretionary referral orders are available where the child pleads guilty to at least one offence even if there are previous convictions, and the children guideline encourages second referral orders in defined circumstances rather than leaping to a youth rehabilitation order or custody. Breach or reoffending can bring the child back to court. A referral order is a court sentence; the later panel is not a trial hearing, but it is part of the statutory process the FLK expects you to know.

Youth rehabilitation orders

A youth rehabilitation order (YRO) is the youth community sentence. Section 173 of the Sentencing Code defines it as an order imposing one or more youth rehabilitation requirements. It is available where the offender is under 18 at the time of conviction (section 177), subject to hospital-order and mandatory-sentence exclusions. It is not an adult community order. Do not import adult rehabilitation-activity requirements, adult unpaid-work maxima, or adult "community order" labels. The court must not make a YRO unless the offence, or the combination of the offence and associated offences, was serious enough to warrant one (section 179). It must also consider the child's family circumstances and the likely effect of the order. Requirements must be suitable for the child, and any restriction of liberty must be commensurate with seriousness. The Sentencing Council's Sentencing children and young people guideline warns against a package so onerous that breach is almost inevitable. The order must specify an end date by which the requirements are to be completed; that date must not be more than three years after the order takes effect.

Typical requirements at FLK level, taken from the children guideline and Schedule 6 to the Code, include supervision; an activity requirement (published maximum 90 days); unpaid work of 40 to 240 hours, available only if the offender is aged 16 or 17 when convicted (section 185); a programme requirement; an attendance centre requirement (hours are age-banded in the guideline); prohibited activity; curfew; exclusion; residence, including local-authority residence; education; mental-health, drug-treatment, drug-testing and intoxicating-substance treatment requirements; and electronic monitoring. Two heavier forms sit at the custody threshold. A YRO with intensive supervision and surveillance must include an extended activity requirement, supervision, and a curfew (with electronic monitoring as the Code requires). A YRO with fostering includes fostering and supervision. Both are available only for an imprisonable offence, and only where the court is of the opinion that if they were not available a custodial sentence would be appropriate (sections 178 and 180). For a child under 15, those heavier forms generally require the court to treat the child as a persistent offender. Do not invent hours or maxima that the guideline and Code do not publish.

A first conviction on a guilty plea that meets the compulsory referral conditions is not a YRO case. After a not-guilty trial resulting in a finding of guilt, a referral order is not compulsory, and a YRO may be the proportionate community response. A child who has already completed a referral order, or who needs a court-set package of supervision, unpaid work, or treatment, is the usual YRO candidate. If the custody threshold is crossed, consider a YRO with intensive supervision and surveillance, or with fostering, before a detention and training order. Immediate custody remains a last resort.

Detention and training orders

A detention and training order (DTO) is the usual custodial sentence in the youth court. It is available for children aged 12 to 17. The term must be 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 18, or 24 months — those lengths only. Half the term is served in detention and half under supervision in the community. If guilty-plea credit would take the term below 4 months, a non-custodial sentence should be imposed rather than inventing a 3-month DTO. For children under 15, a DTO is generally limited to persistent offenders, unless the offence is so serious that a custodial sentence is required on that ground as the Code allows. The child must normally be legally represented. Custody is a last resort. Murder and other grave cases in the Crown Court use different custodial sentences (detention at His Majesty's pleasure; section 250 detention), which is why grave-crime allocation exists.

A solicitor in the youth court should arrive knowing the child's age to the day, the plea, whether an adult is jointly charged, whether a homicide or firearms sending is mandatory, whether a grave-crime sending is a real prospect, which of the two robbery guidelines apply if the charge is robbery, whether a first guilty plea on an imprisonable offence will force a referral order unless custody, hospital, or a discharge is proposed, and whether a youth rehabilitation order rather than a detention and training order is the lawful community alternative.

Preliminary considerations for the use of the Welsh language in criminal proceedings

This is a distinct Criminal Law and Practice bullet. It is not satisfied by knowing the civil Practice Direction on the Welsh language in civil proceedings that is taught in dispute resolution.

England and Wales is a single legal jurisdiction, but the law that applies in Wales can differ from the law that applies in England. In Wales the Welsh language has official status under the Welsh Language (Wales) Measure 2011, and it can be used in proceedings in Wales. The SRA assessment specification flags those facts because they change how a newly qualified solicitor prepares a criminal case listed in a Welsh court.

The courtroom right is section 22 of the Welsh Language Act 1993. In any legal proceedings in Wales, the Welsh language may be spoken by any party, witness or other person who desires to use it. The right does not depend on inability to speak English, on the prosecutor's consent, or on the offence having a Welsh factual connection. A bilingual client who has given instructions in English has not waived it. In a court other than a magistrates' court, the right is subject to such prior notice as rules of court require. Criminal Procedure Rules 2025, rule 3.34 is the criminal notice rule for the Crown Court: where a Crown Court trial will take place in Wales and a participant wishes to use Welsh, that participant must serve notice on the court officer at or before the plea and trial preparation hearing, or in accordance with any direction the court gives. If notice is served, the court officer must arrange for an interpreter to attend. Section 22 itself requires that any necessary provision for interpretation be made, and it enables rules on the use of documents in the Welsh language in proceedings in or having a connection with Wales.

For a defence solicitor the preliminary work is practical and early.

• At first conference, ask the client — and likely defence witnesses — whether they wish to use Welsh in the hearings, not merely whether they "need" an interpreter because their English is limited.
• If the case will be heard in Wales, notify the court in writing as soon as the election is known. In the youth court or magistrates' court, section 22's formal prior-notice proviso is aimed at other courts, but listing still needs practical notice if a Welsh-speaking bench or interpreter is to be available on the first appearance. In the Crown Court in Wales, serve the rule 3.34 notice by the plea and trial preparation hearing.
• Ask for interpretation of spoken evidence and for translation of the charge, any important unused material the client must understand, and any basis of plea, order, or youth-offender-panel contract.
• Record the election on the case-management form so the listing office, the Youth Offending Team, and the prosecutor are not surprised on the day.
• Do not treat the choice of Welsh as a delay tactic, and do not put the client to extra cost for using an official language of the proceedings.

If the trial is listed in England, section 22 does not confer a right to conduct the hearing in Welsh as proceedings "in Wales". Take instructions in the client's preferred language and, if a Welsh-speaking client is tried in England, raise interpretation as an ordinary fair-trial need rather than as the section 22 criminal-proceedings right.