Well, Well.

One of the areas in which magistrates still have wide discretion is in the matter of costs and compensation. I recently sat on a Crown Court appeal against sentence, and we decided to vary the fine and costs imposed in the lower court. The CPS counsel stood up and pointed Hizonner in the direction of a passage in Archbold that says that the Crown Court has no power to alter a costs order made below, so we were obliged to leave the figure at the level ordered by the sentencing magistrates.
I never knew that, and nor, for that matter, did the judge.