Magistrates gave warning yesterday that the criminal justice system is being “undermined” because thousands of serious offences are being processed by police using fixed penalty notices away from public scrutiny.

Crimes of violence - such as “glassing” or actual or grievous bodily harm - are not being brought before the courts at all in the interests of police targets, JPs said at their annual conference in London.

The proportion of such offences being diverted from the courts was increasing, and the public had no knowledge of them or how they were being dealt with, magistrates said. But the practice meant that police were effectively taking on the role of “sentencers”, they added.

The magistrates called for a halt to the trend and overwhelmingly endorsed a motion opposing the use of cautions and fixed penalty notices where inappropriate.

They urged ministers to set up an inquiry into the use of such penalties and to gather and publish detailed evidence as to its scale and consistency throughout England and Wales.

Cindy Barnett, outgoing chairman of the 30,000-strong Magistrates’ Association in England and Wales, said that magistrates were completely committed to making the courts quicker and more efficient.

“But we don’t want to compromise justice,” she said, adding: “Overtly serious offences are being dealt with, if not in secret, certainly not in the open.” The boundaries as to what offences should go before the courts were being wrongly drawn and confidence was being shaken, she said.

Peter Sanderson, a magistrate from Suffolk and proposer of the motion, said that two defendants recently came before his court charged with “very serious violent offences”. The information provided to the court showed that they had been previously cautioned for grievous bodily harm and actual bodily harm: “one head-butting the victim and breaking his nose, the other for ‘glassing’ the victim in the neck.”

The examples involved two victims who would have avoided their traumatic experiences if the original cases had been brought to court and appropriately dealt with, he said.

“One of the cautions was so serious that the offender should have been dealt with at the crown court.” Such disposal of serious offences for serious acts of violence “undermines the whole criminal justice system, brings the courts into disrepute and causes a major loss of confidence by the general public”. He added: “It is essential that offence such as GBH and ABH are always processed before an open court, not behind closed doors and without public scrutiny.”

Another JP, Richard Monkhouse from Greater Manchester, said that a youth had come before his court for a public order offence and the records showed he had been previously cautioned for carrying a knife.

“The starting point for such an offence, carrying a bladed instrument is supposed to be custody,” he said.

Yet in another case, a man was charged and brought before the courts just for not having a fishing licence.

Jack Straw, Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, addressing the meeting said that at as part of his move to put court judgments online, he would look into whether it was also possible to record the fixed penalty notices issued by police also on line.

He said that he was determined to make justice more open and visible because it had the ability to increase public confidence in the system as a whole.

Earlier magistrates also overwhelmingly called for “serial” offences of driving while disqualified to be tried in crown courts as well as by magistrates.

Bob Woodward, a JP in Wiltshire, said that offenders were repeatedly coming before the magistrates’ courts who could only sentence them to a maximum of six months, which after discounts could mean just two months in jail.

A defendant at a recent hearing in Wiltshire was facing his 50th and 51st conviction for driving while disqualified, he said.

“The serious persistent offender clearly takes little notice of the sentence handed down and the orders of the court are being wilfully and blatantly ignored.”

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