YORK magistrates have tightened security in their courthouse by the installation of a metal detector at the front entrance.

The security arch is the most visible sign of a series of measures aimed at reducing violence and staff intimidation at the building in Clifford Street.

While magistrates were sitting, workmen moved in and set up the metal detector by one of the entrance doors. The other was closed.

Defendants, witnesses and lawyers who had walked into the building unscanned as normal found they had to walk out through the arch.

Moves are already under way to make a "secure" dock in one of the lower courtrooms with see-through barriers that are too high for defendants in custody to jump over.

In the past, several defendants have leaped from the dock and escaped into the streets of York.

More security staff have been on duty in the courthouse for some time.

All the measures are in response to an alarming increase in court violence in recent years, including an attack on an Old Bailey judge as she sat in judgement and a teenage defendant pulling a gun in Harrogate Magistrates Court earlier this year.

A recent Government inspectors' report criticised the North Yorkshire Magistrates Court Committee for the level of violence in its York courthouse.

Last year, York Crown Court installed a security arch in a bid to reduce violence and to protect judges and court users.

In 1999, before it was installed, a defendant carried a knife into the building which was only discovered when dock officers searched him.

Updated: 10:42 Tuesday, September 25, 2001