VPRS 8705 Children's Court Registers

The location of Children's Court Registers created before 1968 is not known as at November 1993. It is not known if such records were created. A Court of Petty Sessions opened at Hastings in 1913. However the Children's Court is a separate jurisdiction.For the period 1973 to 1980 Hastings Children's Court Registers were kept between the same covers as the Petty Sessions/Magistrates' Courts Registers (VPRS 6630). These have been removed from those volumes and placed in this series.Hastings Children's Court Registers do not appear to have been created since 1977. Such cases may have been heard at Dromana Children's Court after that date. Hastings Courts were officially closed in 1990.Background: Children's CourtsChildren's Courts were established in Victoria by the Children's Courts Act 1906. This Act came into operation on 1 December 1906.Children's Courts could sit at any place where a Court of Petty Sessions/Magistrates' Court sat and each was presided over by a Police Magistrate appointed by the Governor in Council as a "special magistrate" for Children's Courts. The Courts had exclusive jurisdiction with regard to persons under the age of seventeen to:inquire into charges of indictable offences (ie more serious offences) and determine whether the child should stand trial in a court of higher jurisdiction. (With the permission of the child's parents or guardian, and where the child was under the age of twelve, the children's court could itself determine charges involving indictable offences, except charges of murder and manslaughter.)inquire into and determine charges of summary offences (ie less serious offences) in the same manner and with largely the same rules of procedure as Courts of Petty Sessions.hear and determine applications for children to be committed to the care of the state.Children's Court RegistersThe 1906 Children's Court Act and subsequent legislation of the same name required clerks of Children's Courts to keep a Register of all cases and decisions of the court. This Act also set out the form that the register should take. The Registers record details of the case number (see below), the name of the informant or applicant, the name of the accused or defendant, his or her age or apparent age, how the defendant was brought to court (arrest warrant or summons), the court fees due, the nature of the information, charge or application, the courts decision and order and any remarks. The payment of fines or fees is often recorded in the remarks column.