Last week I found myself having to attend Bristol Magistrates' Court in relation to an incident which occurred in March, whereby one of our police community support officers was verbally abused while attempting to speak with a male who had been cycling on the pavement.

Our witness warnings indicated that we were to be at the court for 9.45am, and on the day in question we made our way to the room set aside for police officers and witnesses, and waited to be spoken to by the prosecutor in the case.

At 10.30am, having spoken to the prosecutor myself, my police community support colleague and another officer who had been present during the incident, along with a public spirited independent witness who had travelled from outside Bristol to give evidence on our behalf, we waited to be called to give our evidence. At 11am I was informed that the defendant had yet to turn up for court. A little later, the prosecutor returned and stated that the defendant had eventually attended court and had now changed his plea to guilty.

Therefore, we were no longer required and so we made our way back to the station to start our own work.

Attending court and giving evidence is an important part of bringing offenders to justice, but I can't help but wonder how much time and money is wasted during this process. It is not the fault of the judicial service, as all cases need to be tried fairly and both parties are entitled to call various witnesses to support their respective versions of events.

But, in some cases, I believe that witnesses are called to see if they will actually turn up and be prepared to give evidence – once they attend and appear willing to stand up in court to explain what they had witnessed, the defence in all probability advises the client to plead to the offence. On that one day, along with myself, there were another 18 police officers sat in the witness waiting room having been required to give evidence in their respective cases.

I know that before I left, at least six of these were dismissed as being no longer required.

The judicial services should be commended for bringing cases to court a lot quicker than in the past. But I wonder if the defendants in these cases will receive additional punishment for wasting both the police and the court's time once sentencing is passed.

For the defendant in the case that we had been called for, his excuse for turning up over two hours late was transport issues in getting to court.