Court Proceedings
The primary function of Court Proceedings is to transform a Libra PDF register
into a searchable history of court appearances and results.
Electronic copies of each PNC Disposal Register are generated by the
Court's Libra computer system in a PDF format.
Nominated Police users have third party access to the Libra application and can
save the PDF registers to a nominated location on their network.
Analysis of Files - An import application converts the PDF registers into a text
format and then imports the defendant, offence and adjudication details.
Comprehensive processes extract data into a structured database. These fields
also include useful dates such as offence date and court appearance. This import
function can run as a continuous service so that files are automatically
imported as soon as they are saved in the nominated folder.
Import Logging - As each file is processed, logs are created to confirm
activity. Usually this log will only show a start and end date of import. When
the system generates an error message, this is stored with a date. If the error
occurs during the reading of the file text, the line being read is appended to
the log and the file is transferred to an error folder for later investigation.
File logs are stored with a date in the filename.
Case Text Searching - Any word or phrase including dates can be used to retrieve
records from the database. This facility searches defendant details and any of
the text of the offence or adjudication providing an extremely flexible tool for
all Police departments or unit.
Intranet -
The Court Proceedings intranet is a search based thin-client application. The defendant search provides a straightforward name filter, including the option of a date range and automatic wildcards. There is also a partial address search, which for example allows a user to enter the street name or house number and a postcode to return possible matches. The advanced search returns hits matching a
number of key parameters.
Upon finding the desired result, the user can then enter the defendant record to view information on all cases. The defendant page provides details
of each case and appearance with all offence and adjudication text. Filters
provide information based on keywords from adjudication text in the court
register and offence text. With a keyword search only the most urgent data is
returned with a search working between ranges of dates to reduce information
overload. The original pdf register is saved after import allowing 'one click'
access to the document from the defendant record.
Usage - Court Proceedings is licenced with an unlimited number of user licences
in each police area. Thus, users who require access to court registers can have
access to the data even if the number of third party Libra licences have been
used up. Furthermore the comprehensive retrieval functions provide specialist
departments with the tools needed to fulfil their objectives.
Deployment - There are four parts to deploying the Court Proceedings system.
First a script, including all tables, keys and stored procedures, creates the
SQL Server database. The management and printing sub-systems are distributed
using Windows Installer (MSI) files, which also provide full uninstall
facilities. The intranet is installed via an x-copy process, and configured
through IIS. Each of the Court Proceedings application, including the intranet
site, uses a “config.ini” file to control settings such as file paths and
database server connections.
System Requirements:
- Windows Server 2003
- IIS 6 (Internet Information Services) or higher
- .Net Framework 3.5
- SQL Server 2005
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