VPRS 8847 Court of Petty Sessions Police/Arrest Register

This series consists of Police/Arrest registers created at the Myrtleford Court of Petty Sessions. The single volume extant (in the P1 consignment) was created between June 1934 and July 1938. It is not known whether Police/Arrest registers were created at at this court outside of this date range.BackgroundSuccessive Justices' Acts and, more recently, Magistrates' Court Acts have required the clerk or registrar of the court to make and keep a register of all convictions, orders and other proceedings of the court. This register is the authoritative record of the court.Until about 1888 this record was usually called a Cause List Book and had a slightly different format; since then the term Register has been used.In many courts, particularly larger ones, clerks have maintained several sequences of registers according to different types of matters dealt with by the court. Police/Arrest Registers record details of criminal cases where the defendant was arrested by the police and brought by them to court. (The other main mechanism for commencing criminal cases and bringing defendants to court was by summons.)ContentPolice/Arrest Registers are generally in the same format as all other Petty Sessions Registers, giving details of the case number, the name of the prosecutor or informant, the name of the accused or defendant, how the case came to the court (in all cases this would state "arrest") the fees or court costs accrued, a description of the charge, cause or proceeding, the decision or order and any remarks. The column for remarks was often used to record the payment of fines and fees.In order to authenticate entries made in the register the presiding officer(s) of the court signed the register at the end of each day.Related RecordsOther types of registers from this court are listed in the Inventory of Series.Several types of warrants, summonses, informations (ie statements by witnesses and parties of the case informing the court about the case) and other documents were also lodged with or created by the court in the process of administering each case. The documents were known as "process" and were placed together to create a case file. In most instances these files were destroyed about fifteen years after the completion of the case to which they related.