“It would sure be nice if the English would translate their news articles for us Americans.”
Maybe this will help:
Council home = Public housing (Much more prevalent in the UK than US)
Council boss/leader = Public housing administrator
Flat = Apartment
Magistrate = Judge
Thanks. That clears up the article. Hey, there are a few other English words that are confusing. What’s a bonnet and an boot?
Not quite. In Britain, a magistrate is a Justice of the Peace (JP), which is not quite the same thing as a judge, who in Britain is a professional and an experienced barrister.
A Magistrate in Britain is a volunteer appointed from within the local community who deals with issues of justice at the lower levels (summarary offences, signing search warrants etc) as well as holding committal hearings to determine whether an offence can be tried in the magistrates court by three magistrates sitting on the bench, or sent to Crown Court (with a judge and jury). Cases where the punishment for being found guilty is judged to warrant a sentence harsher than the 6 month maximimum sentence than the magistrates, or where the defendant opts for a jury trial, are passed on by the magistrates to a Crown Court. A lot of the magistrates have been choosing to pass some of these cases up to Crown Court because they want and expect the Crown Courts to give them more than 6 months...