Obiter has always suspected that it must be good fun to be a judge, so an educational game currently featured on the Ministry of Justice website, which invites users to ‘be a judge for a day’, was too much to resist.

In You be the Judge, actors play out magistrates’ and Crown court cases based on real-life crimes. Players decide on appropriate sentences for defendants, which are compared with the actual sentences handed down (an MoJ riposte to the perception of too much leniency in sentencing?), as well as the sentences imposed by other players. There are four cases: criminal damage; burglary; robbery; and threatening behaviour.

Adopting the fire and brimstone approach, Obiter admits to getting a little carried away: jailing a teenager for shouting at an elderly lady (the youth of today, tut tut); locking up a young man for vandalising cars; and incarcerating two drug addicts, thus destroying their chances of proper rehab­ilitation. A classic example of power without responsibility, you might say.

But Obiter must also pass judgement on the game itself, which is actually jolly good, and we recommend it. Will criminal solicitors have any greater success at guessing the real outcome than their civil colleagues?

Obiter does have one critical observation, however. While the magistrates, judges, solicitors, barristers, legal advisers and court clerks depicted in the four scenarios are male, female and of varying ethnic origins, every one of the defendants is white, male, and under 40.

Obiter furrows his judicial brow at that.