Good morning members — we don’t usually send newsletters on Fridays but a case we’ve been following in the courts got delayed by one day so we skipped out yesterday and can bring you that piece today. 

The story is about how justice gets done. It’s the first in what will be a regular series of Mill reports from Greater Manchester’s courts, in which we try to understand how the system works, why it takes so long to bring people to trial and what goes on in the kinds of cases that don’t tend to have reporters present.

The justice system is such an important part of our society, but the way it’s covered in the media can seem a bit medieval — calling criminals thugs, publishing their mugshots in online photo galleries and missing out on the nuances you often find when you take a closer look. We wondered if there was a slightly different way of covering justice at work — one that tries to take you inside the courtroom to see what is going on.