If you are under 18 then you go to a Youth Court not the adult Magistrates’ Court.

If you are charged along with an adult, then initially your case is sent to the Magistrates’ Court, although the matter can be sent back to the Youth Court for sentence if you plead guilty.

However, there are circumstances when you would stay with the adult and your case may even go to the Crown Court.

If you are under 16, whether or not you are living at home, you are entitled to be represented by a solicitor, subject only to being able to persuade the Court that it is in the interests of justice that you be given a solicitor.

The same applies if you are under 18, but in full time education.

If you are in work then, just like the Magistrates’ Court, you have to pass the means test as well as the interests of justice test.